OCTH^  1916 


L*'V/siofi 


Setttoft 


QUIET  HINTS 

TO  GROWING  PREACHERS 

IN  MY  STUDY 


BOOKS    BY    DR.    JEFFERSON 

Quiet  Talks  with  Earnest  People. 

Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

The  Minister  as  Prophet. 

The  Minister  as  Shepherd. 

Doctrine  and  Deed. 

Things  Fltndamental. 

The  Character  of  Jesus. 

The  New  Crusade. 

My  Father's  Business. 

Building  of  the  Church. 

Why  We  may  Believe  in  Life  After  Death. 

Talks  on  High  Themes. 

Christmas  Builders. 

The  Cause  of  the  War. 


QUIET  HINTS      ^-^iiiiwijv 
TO    GROWING    PREACHERS 
IN  MY  STUDY 


BY  y^ 

CHARLES   EDWARD   JEFFERSON 

Pastor  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  Church 
in  New  York 


NEW   YORK 

THOMAS   Y.    CROWELL   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1901, 
By  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Company. 


Sixth  Thousand. 


TO   HIS 

g0tmser  Brettren  in  t!)e  Pmfetrs 

FOR    WHOM    HE    CRAVES 

A    BLESSED   LIFE   AND   A   GLORIOUS   WORK, 

THIS    LITTLE    VOLUME 

IS    AFFECTIONATELY    INSCRIBED   BY 

THE   AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.     Wherefore  All  This i 

II.  A  Mirror  for  Ministers     ....  9 

III.  The  Man  of  Macedonia 17 

IV.  Which  Door  ? 25 

V.     Starts  Good  and  Bad 33 

VI.  The  Foremost  of  the  Demons    .    .  41 

VII.     Cowardice 49 

VIII.     Impatience 57 

IX.    Clerical  Hamlets ^ 

X.     Despondency 75 

XL  The  Value  of  a  Target     ....  84 

XII.     Building  the  Tower 92 

XIII.  Selfishness 100 

XIV.  Dishonesty 109 

XV.     Autocracy 118 

XVI.     Vanity 126 

XVII.     Discontent 134 

vii 


viii  Contents, 

PAOB 

XVIII.  Pettiness 142 

XIX.  Foolishness 150 

XX.  Meanness 158 

XXI.  Mannerisms 166 

XXII.  "Thy  Speech  Bewrayeth  Thee".  174 

XXIII.  Books  and  Reading 183 

XXIV.  Near  to  Men  Near  to  God  .    .    .  191 
XXV.  Eagles,  Race-horses  and  Plodders  199 

XXVI.  Unconscious  Decay 207 


QUIET    HINTS    TO    GROWING 
PREACHERS  IN  MY  STUDY. 


I. 

Wherefore  All  This, 

Please  let  me  shut  the  door.  We  are 
here  alone,  Brethren,  and  we  want  no 
eavesdroppers.  Human  ears  are  sensitive ; 
and  if  we  do  not  speak  in  quiet  tones,  I 
fear  the  laity  may  come  flying  as  doves 
to  our  windows.  It  is  characteristic  of 
human  nature  to  be  interested  in  what  is 
intended  for  somebody  else.  A  short  time 
ago  I  invited  into  my  study  a  company  of 
laymen  that  we  might  have  a  confidential 
chat  concerning  certain  matters  relating 
especially  to  the  people  in  the  pews,  but 
before  the  evening  was  far  advanced  my 
invited   guests  were  crowded    completely 


2    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

into  a  corner  by  the  throng  of  ministers 
who  came  rushing  in.  I  had  spoken  only 
briefly  when  a  minister  began  suggesting 
things  which  laymen  ought  to  hear,  and 
when  at  last  my  talk  was  finished  the  most 
robust  *'  Amen  "  which  reached  my  ears 
came  from  the  approving  throat  of  a 
clergyman.  I  fear  therefore  that  should 
our  present  meeting  be  noised  abroad  it 
would  be  necessary  to  adjourn  from  the 
study  to  the  church  auditorium  and  possi- 
bly to  the  public  square :  for  nothing  so 
stirs  the  curiosity  of  laymen  as  the  things 
which  ministers  discuss  in  secret. 

I  have  long  wished,  Brethren,  to  talk 
over  with  you  certain  things  which  are  so 
delicate  in  their  nature  one  hesitates  to 
mention  them,  but  which  are  of  so  great 
importance  to  us  clergymen  and  to  the 
church  universal,  that  silence  concerning 
them  cannot  be  commended.  What  I 
shall  say  is  not  said  as  criticism  but  rather 
as  suggestion   and  admonition.     Some  of 


Wherefore  AH  This.  3 

you  have  written  to  me,  others  of  you 
have  come  to  see  me  from  time  to  time 
concerning  perplexities  in  your  work,  and 
there  are  other  things  no  doubt  on  your 
mind  which  you  have  not  yet  had  oppor- 
tunity to  mention.  In  order  that  we 
might  have  a  good  confidential  talk  to- 
gether about  these  things  of  moment  to 
us  all,  I  have  opened  wide  my  study  door 
and  asked  you  to  come  in.  You  are  all,  I 
see,  younger  men  than  I  am,  and  therefore 
I  can  speak  with  greater  plainness  and 
fuller  freedom.  But  however  frank  and 
bold  my  utterance,  Brethren,  not  one 
syllable  shall  be  spoken  to  hurt,  but  every 
syllable  to  help.  I  am  not  a  sour-eyed 
censor  of  ministerial  morality,  nor  do  I 
wish  to  swell  the  chorus  of  that  hoarse- 
voiced  company  just  now  shouting  the 
ministers'  dispraise.  I  have  no  sympathy 
with  the  men  who  persist  in  the  affirma- 
tion that  most  ministers  preach  what  they 
do  not  believe,  nor  do  I  accept  the  dictum 


4     Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

laid  down  with  gravity  by  sneering  judges 
that  if  preachers  could  only  preach  a  little 
all  the  churches  would  be  filled.  The 
stormy  lamentations  of  those  who  would 
make  the  Seminaries  hopelessly  antiquated 
institutions  and  most  recent  graduates 
anointed  numskulls,  are  in  my  judgment 
sound  and  fury  signifying  nothing.  But 
a  man  with  open  eyes  cannot  fail  to  see 
that  in  the  ecclesiastical  world,  as  in  every 
other,  there  are  stumblings  and  failings 
and  fallings,  and  if  his  heart  be  sym- 
pathetic he  cannot  but  wish  to  help  his 
brethren  avoid  the  pitfalls  into  which 
some  have  fallen  and  safeguard  them  from 
forms  of  conduct  which  weaken  and  offend. 
Ministers  as  a  body  are  I  think  the  best 
men  living  on  the  earth.  I  could  fill  a 
dozen  evenings  with  praises  of  the  pulpit 
saints  whom  I  have  known.  In  purity  of 
motive  ministers  as  a  class  surpass  the 
lawyers,  in  breadth  of  sympathy  the  physi- 
cians, in  fidelity  to  principle  the  editors,  in 


Wherefore  All  This.  5 

self-sacrifice  the  merchants,  in  moral  cour- 
age the  soldiers,  in  loftiness  of  ideals  the 
teachers,  in  purity  of  life  the  highest 
classes  in  our  best  society.  This  is  not 
said  boastfully  but  gratefully  as  a  fact  not 
to  be  disputed.  But  ministers  to  be  as 
good  as  other  classes  of  men  must  be 
better  than  they.  No  other  set  of  men 
make  such  assumptions  or  bind  themselves 
to  such  high  ideals.  A  lawyer  when  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar  does  not  promise  to  obey 
the  ten  commandments.  A  physician  on 
receiving  his  diploma  does  not  agree  to 
practice  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Being 
an  editor  involves  no  assumption  of  fidelity 
to  gospel  principles,  and  merchants  do  not 
enter  business  announcing  to  the  world 
their  purpose  to  give  their  life  a  ransom 
for  others.  If  therefore  both  in  spirit  and 
conduct  ministers  as  a  body  were  not 
superior  to  every  other  class  of  men  they 
would  be  a  disgrace  to  their  profession  and 
a  scandal  to  the  world.     While  all  men,  no 


6    Quiet  Hints  to   Growing  Preachers. 

matter  what  their  calHng,  are  under  the 
eternal  law  of  God,  and  therefore  morally 
bound  to  keep  the  ten  commandments  and 
to  live  in  the  spirit  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  yet  as  clergymen  are  the  only  men 
who  voluntarily  confess  these  obligations 
and  give  their  life  to  the  work  of  making 
them  real  to  other  men,  it  follows  that 
more  may  rightfully  be  expected  of  them 
than  from  any  other  tribe  of  workers  in 
our  modern  Israel. 

Much  is  rightfully  expected  and  much 
also  is  received.  To  be  sure  there  is  a 
scapegrace  here  and  there,  and  of  not 
a  few  clerical  workmen  there  is  abundant 
reason  to  be  ashamed,  but  in  a  world  like 
this,  universal  piety  and  wisdom  among  the 
professed  servants  of  religion  is  as  im- 
possible to-day  as  it  was  when  Jesus  chose 
his  dozen  men  one  of  whom  was  Judas. 
Taking  the  clerical  body  as  a  whole  it  is 
made  up  of  honest,  capable,  faithful  men. 

But  a  man  may  be  all  this  and  still  fail. 


Wherefore  All  This.  7 

There  are  infirmities  of  temper  and  infeli- 
cities of  conduct  which,  while  hardly  fall- 
ing into  the  category  of  sins,  are  none  the 
less  so  disastrous  in  their  effects  on  spirit- 
ual life  as  to  be  worthy  of  a  place  among 
those  evils  from  which  one  should  pray  to 
be  delivered.  Ministers  with  rare  excep- 
tions are  neither  rogues  nor  hypocrites,  but 
being  human  they  are  capable  of  all  sorts 
of  distorted  action,  and  the  very  nature  of 
their  work  exposes  them  to  a  multitude 
of  dangers  from  which  other  men  are  on 
the  whole  exempt.  Many  a  man  in  the 
ministry  fails,  not  because  he  is  bad,  but 
because  he  has  a  genius  for  blunder- 
ing. Men  with  ability  sufficient  to  carry 
them  to  distinction  fail  to  rise  because 
of  foibles  and  oddities  which  they  seem 
unable  to  shake  off.  "  O  if  he  would 
only  quit  that  !  "  How  frequently  that 
doleful  exclamation  has  fallen  from  the 
lips  of  the  despairing  saints.  Even  slight 
defects  in  clergymen   are  momentous  be- 


8    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

cause  they  live  always  in  a  light  as  search- 
ing and  intense  as  that  which  beats  upon 
a  throne.  What  other  man  in  the  com- 
munity makes  such  constant  self-disclo- 
sures as  the  minister  ?  His  eyes,  lips, 
teeth,  facial  expression,  voice,  mind,  heart, 
moods,  all  these  are  subjected  to  public 
scrutiny.  Whatever  is  crooked  or  un- 
christian in  him  is  certain  to  come  out. 
The  Scripture  says  the  saints  shall  judge 
the  world.  It  is  their  special  province 
and  delight  to  judge  those  who  minister  to 
them  in  spiritual  things.  Since  this  is  so, 
there  is  reason,  Brethren,  why  we,  of  all 
men,  should  walk  circumspectly,  redeeming 
the  time. 


A  Mirror  for  Ministers, 


II. 

A  Mirror  for  Ministers, 

Probably  no  other  man  in  the  town  is 
subjected  to  such  a  constant  stream  of 
criticism  as  the  minister,  and  possibly  no 
other  man  profits  so  Uttle  by  criticism  as 
he.  This  is  not  because  of  the  rhinoceros 
quaUty  of  the  ministerial  skin,  but  because 
the  criticism  does  not  reach  him.  Those 
who  make  the  fiercest  onslaughts  on  him 
get  in  their  best  work  when  he  is  not  in 
sight.  Even  the  glib-tongued  experts 
become  silent  on  his  approach.  Other 
men  are  censured  to  their  face.  The 
tough  meat  sold  by  the  butcher  brings 
an  immediate  and  audible  response.  The 
merchant  who  sells  unsatisfactory  goods 
must  take  the  condemnation  which  is  sure 


TO    Quiet  Hints  to   Growing  Preachers. 

to  come.  If  the  editor  offends  in  word  or 
deed,  the  next  mail  brings  him  condemn- 
ing letters.  The  mechanic  who  scamps 
his  work  is  promptly  overhauled.  The 
servant  who  shirks  his  duties  is  repri- 
manded or  dismissed.  But  who  is  bold 
enough  to  face  a  clergyman,  and  tell  him 
of  his  sins } 

"There's  such  divinity  doth  hedge  a  king, 
That  treason  can  but  peep  to  what  it  would." 

And  there  is  such  divinity  doth  hedge 
a  preacher  that  dissatisfaction  dares  but 
whisper  what  it  feels.  Outside  the  hedge 
disapprobation  makes  wry  faces  and  de- 
traction does  its  deadly  work  while  within 
the  hedge  the  minister  lives  on  in  ignor- 
ance of  his  critics'  strictures,  untouched 
by  what  the  parish  thinks  and  says. 
Disgruntled  men  sputter  at  the  Sunday 
dinner-table  in  the  presence  of  their  chil- 
dren, and  women  in  divers  places  drop 
acidulated  observations,  but,  alas,  the 
man  who  ought  to  be  helped  by  this  dis- 


A  Mirror  for  Ministers.  1 1 

criminating  wisdom  is  left  to  flounder  in 
the  morass  into  which  he  has  fallen,  and 
dies  at  last  in  his  sins. 

If,  perchance,  someone  ventures  to 
call  the  minister's  attention  to  any  one 
of  his  shortcomings,  it  is  seldom  done  in 
such  a  way  as  to  bring  the  needed  help. 
A  caustic  cavil  or  poisoned  fling  is  tucked 
into  an  envelope  and  sent  to  him  un- 
signed, and  the  good  man  who  has  been 
told  to  pay  no  attention  to  anonymous 
letters,  tosses  it  promptly  into  the  waste- 
basket  unread.  An  anonymous  letter 
has  little  healing  in  its  wings. 

But  there  are  occasional  mortals  bold 
enough  to  meet  the  preacher  face  to  face. 
There  are  in  almost  every  congregation 
two  or  three  keen-eyed  individuals  who 
are  determined  at  all  hazards  to  be 
"faithful."  But  these  persons  are  gen- 
erally as  disagreeable  as  they  are  faithful, 
and  in  their  work  of  pulling  motes  their 
awkwardness    is    so    exasperating   as    to 


1 2    duiet  Hints  to  Growinz  Preachers. 


^> 


lead  the  unhappy  minister  to  consider 
them  not  ministering  angels  but  new 
incarnations  of  that  spirit  of  evil  against 
which  the  Christian  warrior  must  learn 
to  stand.  The  ordinary  self-appointed 
critic  of  ministerial  character  and  con- 
duct undoubtedly  has  a  place  in  God's 
plan  of  creation,  but  what  it  is  has  not  yet 
been  definitely  ascertained. 

But  if  the  anonymous  bloodhounds  and 
the  professional  fault-finders  are  useless 
in  the  work  of  redemption,  how  is  a 
minister  to  be  saved }  Shall  some  sweet, 
sane  saint  call  the  Pastor  aside  and  tell 
him  gently  of  his  sins  t  Possibly  yes, 
but  it  is  a  hazardous  undertaking,  as  many 
a  saint  has  long  ago  discovered.  A 
minister,  like  other  mortals,  is  human  and 
whenever  pricked  he  bleeds.  Even  the 
best  men  when  censured  writhe  and  tingle 
and  sometimes  smart  for  many  days. 
The  smarting  may  generate  even  in  a 
pious  heart  a  feeling  of  resentment  or  at 


A  Mirror  for  Ministers.  13 

least  of  suspiciousness,  so  that  forever 
afterward  the  relations  between  the  Pastor 
and  his  critic  are  not  what  they  were. 
Any  minister  who  has  ever  talked  plainly 
to  a  parishioner  concerning  his  short- 
comings knows  that  always  afterward 
that  talk  has  loomed  up  between  them 
like  a  Chinese  wall,  giving  each  of  them 
a  sense  of  separation  which  could  not  be 
obliterated.  The  relations  between  a 
Pastor  and  his  people  are  so  delicate  that 
like  the  finest  porcelain  they  cannot  be 
broken  and  ever  be  the  same  again. 
They  may  be  mended  but  there  is  always 
a  consciousness  of  the  existence  of  the 
crack.  Laymen  who  have  ventured  to 
give  their  Pastor  from  time  to  time  quiet 
hints  know  how  delicate  and  critical  such 
business  is.  As  a  rule  they  do  not  pur- 
sue it  far,  finding  relief  henceforth  in  an 
interior  protest  against  that  which  they  do 
not  like,  and  endeavoring  to  remember 
the  apostolic  injunction,  "we  then  that  are 


14    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

strong  ought  to  bear  the  infirmities  of 
the  weak,  and  not  to  please  ourselves." 

If  the  improprieties  and  delinquencies 
are  too  numerous  and  flagrant  to  render 
protracted  endurance  a  virtue  the  church 
committee  sometimes  acts  as  a  tribunal 
before  which  the  offending  Pastor  is  sum- 
moned, but  this  usually  marks  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end.  It  brands  the  minister 
in  the  eyes  of  the  congregation  as  a  cul- 
prit, and  when  once  a  minister's  reputation 
for  good  sense  or  fine  taste  is  tarnished  he 
has  already  entered  upon  that  downward 
road  which  leads  to  the  dissolution  of  the 
pastoral  relation.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  church  committees  are  loath  to  cen- 
sure their  minister  unless  driven  to  it  by 
repeated  indiscretions  and  blunderings 
which  cry  aloud  for  redress. 

What  then  is  a  church  to  do }  Breth- 
ren, it  is  a  serious  question.  Many  of  us 
clergymen  do  not  realize  how  serious  it  is. 
A  congregation  is  at  the  mercy  of  a  man, 


A  Mirror  for  Ministers.  15 

who  although  a  minister,  may  have  poor 
judgment,  bad  taste,  a  coarse  nature,  a 
blunted  conscience,  and  a  fatal  gift  for 
saying  and  doing  the  wrong  thing.  He 
may  have  pulpit  manners  which  are  abomi- 
nable and  mannerisms  which  are  constant 
subtractions  from  his  power.  He  may 
have  constitutional  ailments  and  tempera- 
mental deformities  which  might  be  reduced 
or  cured  by  a  course  of  patient  treatment, 
but  of  whose  existence  he  himself  is  appar- 
ently unconscious.  He  may  be  guilty  of 
conduct  which  though  not  positively  sinful 
is  unbecoming  in  a  man  of  God.  Because 
of  spiritual  obtuseness  he  may  persist  in 
courses  of  action  which  are  so  flagrantly 
unchristian  as  to  cause  the  unbelieving  to 
blaspheme.  He  may  become  the  slave  of 
any  one  of  a  thousand  hateful  habits,  and 
so  difficult  is  it  to  rescue  him  from  these 
tyrants,  one  sometimes  wishes  that  all  the 
ministers  of  Christendom  could  be  gath- 
ered at  stated  intervals  into  spiritual  hos- 


1 6    Qtiiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

pitals  especially  provided  for  the  purpose  in 
order  that  every  man  might  be  critically  dis- 
sected by  men  not  afraid  to  lay  their  finger 
upon  every  blemish  and  excrescence,  and 
able  to  burn  afresh  upon  every  heart  the 
loftiest  ideals  of  ministerial  character  and 
service.  "  A  Mirror  for  Magistrates  "  is 
the  suggestive  title  of  a  book  long  famous 
in  English  literature  :  why  should  there 
not  be  "A  Mirror  for  Ministers"  ? 


Thf  Man  of  Macedonia,  1/ 


III. 

The  Man  of  Macedonia, 

A  STUDENT  on  emerging  from  the  Semi- 
nary sometimes  experiences  a  chilling  sur- 
prise. The  world  does  not  seem  glad  that 
another  laborer  is  now  ready  to  enter  the 
vineyard.  It  bustles  unconcernedly  along 
its  hurried  way  without  the  slightest  mani- 
festation of  interest  in  the  youth  who 
longs  to  do  it  service.  It  cares  apparently 
nothing  for  his  Hebrew  or  his  Greek  or 
even  for  his  stores  of  information  concern- 
ing the  latest  speculations  of  the  greatest 
German  scholars.  And  even  for  his  earnest 
spirit  which  yearns  to  render  Christ -like 
ministry  it  shows  an  indifference  at  once 
inexplicable  and  crushing.  What  makes 
this  indifference  well   nigh   intolerable    is 


1 8    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

that  it  is  the  indifference  of  the  Christian 
world.  The  Pagan  world  cannot  be  ex- 
pected to  take  an  interest  in  a  herald  of 
the  Nazarene,  but  surely  the  Christian 
world  will  reach  forth  a  loving  hand  and 
lift  him  into  a  place  of  usefulness  and 
power.  Not  so.  The  churches  are  en- 
grossed each  in  its  own  affairs,  and  have 
no  time  to  create  a  sphere  in  which  this 
Christian  orator  can  exercise  his  gifts. 
Most  of  the  churches  are  already  supplied 
with  leaders,  and  those  whose  pulpit  is 
without  an  occupant  are  either  feeble  and 
fainting  enterprises  struggling  for  exist- 
ence in  forlorn  and  obscure  places,  or  they 
are  churches  of  historic  dignity  to  whose 
leadership  a  man  fresh  from  school  cannot 
aspire.  What  shall  the  young  man  do } 
He  cannot  dig  and  to  beg  he  is  ashamed. 
There  does  not  seem  to  be  anything  to  do 
but  to  begin  and  live  the  gospel.  To  do 
this  is  always  well,  and  a  man  ought  to  be- 
gin to  do  it  before  he  is  intrusted  with  a 


The  Man  of  Macedonia.  19 

church.  The  division  of  labor  has  been 
carried  far  and  will  no  doubt  be  carried 
farther,  but  it  will  never  be  so  extended 
as  to  enable  one  set  of  Christians  to  preach 
the  gospel  while  the  other  set  is  left  to 
practice  it.  If  a  man  expects  to  move 
men  by  his  preaching  h6  must  first  do  a 
deal  of  living,  and  the  sooner  he  begins  to 
live  the  better.  Where  can  a  man  find 
larger  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  that 
faith  and  hope  and  love,  of  that  patience, 
persistency  and  courage  of  which  he  in- 
tends through  all  the  years  to  speak  than 
just  in  that  dark  and  troubled  period  which 
for  many  men  immediately  follows  the 
completion  of  the  Seminary  course  t  If  a 
man  is  to  hold  up  Abraham  as  an  example 
worthy  of  imitation  why  should  he  shrink 
from  going  out  not  knowing  whither  he 
goes  }  And  if  he  proposes  to  spend  his 
life  in  teaching  men  to  believe  that  the 
just  must  walk  by  faith,  why  should  he 
not  do  a  little  of  that  sort  of  walking  him- 


20    Quiet  Hints  to   Growing  Preachers. 

self  ?  If  he  believes  in  the  principle  an- 
nounced by  Jesus  that  every  one  who  asks 
receives  why  does  he  not  proceed  to  put 
that  principle  to  the  test. 

A  man  who  intends  to  preach  the 
Gospel  ought  to  learn  early  that  God  is 
no  respecter  of  persons,  and  that  a  student 
of  theology  is  not  allowed  to  enter  the 
Kingdom  by  a  road  specially  constructed 
for  his  own  tender  feet.  Anything  like 
favoritism  or  coddling  is  abhorrent  to  the 
spirit  of  the  Christian  religion.  Christ 
thrusts  a  cross  into  a  man's  face  and  holds 
it  there.  Accursed  is  every  policy  which 
attempts  to  hide  it  or  take  it  away.  Men 
who  prepare  for  the  ministry  ought  to 
have  no  advantages  given  them  which  are 
denied  to  their  fellows.  They  should  work 
for  their  education  as  hard  as  do  the  men 
who  prepare  for  journalism  or  medicine 
or  law.  Every  indulgence  and  plum  in- 
tended to  make  the  way  into  the  ministry 
more  attractive  than  that  which  leads  into 


The  Man  of  Macedonia.  21 

the  other  professions  ought  to  be  feared 
and  discarded.  If  this  reduces  recruits 
for  the  ministry  so  much  the  better  for 
the  churches.  What  can  organized  Chris- 
tianity accomplish  unless  its  leaders  are 
stalwart  and  tough?  Men  are  not  going 
to  endure  hardness  as  good  soldiers  of 
Christ  when  once  installed  as  pastors  of 
churches  unless  they  have  been  trained 
to  do  this  from  their  youth.  No  one 
who  is  not  willing  to  work  like  a  slave 
through  as  many  years  as  may  be  neces- 
sary to  fit  him  for  his  work  is  worthy 
to  stand  before  the  world  as  an  ordained 
expounder  of  the  message  of  the  Son  of 
God. 

After  a  man  has  secured  his  schooling 
then  let  him  make  himself  a  place  in 
which  to  work.  If  all  the  doors  are  shut 
let  him  open  one.  If  he  cannot  do  this 
he  is  not  needed.  No  man  can  open 
men's  hearts  for  the  Gospel  who  is  too 
weak  to  open  a  door  for  himself  into  the 


22    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

ministry.  It  is  not  a  diploma  which 
proves  a  man's  right  to  be  a  preacher, 
but  a  spiritual  temper  and  a  moral  stamina 
like  unto  those  of  the  Apostles.  Occa- 
sionally one  catches  a  whimpering  tone 
in  the  talk  of  young  men  looking  for  a 
church.  In  their  judgment  they  are  badly 
used.  The  churches  do  not  appreciate 
the  sacrifices  these  men  have  made.  If 
some  church  does  not  speedily  repent  and 
give  a  call  then  these  ill-used  prophets 
will  shake  off  the  dust  of  their  feet 
against  them  and  will  not  preach  at  all ! 
All  such  whining  proceeds  from  a  heart 
which  is  not  right.  The  young  physician 
in  making  a  place  for  himself  in  a  world 
already  overcrowded  expects  a  long-drawn 
struggle,  and  he  is  seldom  disappointed. 
In  many  cases  years  of  poverty  and  pri- 
vation He  between  him  and  the  shining 
goal  on  which  his  hungry  eyes  are  set. 
The  average  lawyer  fights  a  long  and 
tremendous  battle  —  so  do  the  journalist 


The  Man  of  Macedonia.  23 

and  professor,  the  architect  and  artist,  the 
merchant  and  musician.  Every  man  is 
left  to  make  for  himself  his  own  place 
in  the  world,  and  why  should  a  minister 
be  favored  above  his  brethren? 

While  in  the  Seminary  he  heard  the 
world  calling  for  him,  and  in  his  dreams  a 
noble  church  stood  up,  glorious  and  implor- 
ing, and  would  not  let  him  rest.  But  now 
when  he  is  ready  the  church  has  melted 
into  air,  and  in  his  disappointment  he  is 
ready  to  believe  that  all  things  are  as  vain 
and  empty  as  the  baseless  fabric  of  a 
dream.  Let  him  remember  that  his  vision 
was  similar  to  that  of  the  Apostle  Paul. 
The  man  of  Macedonia  who  would  not  let 
Paul  sleep  for  his  constant  cry,  "  Come 
over  and  help  us,"  was  nowhere  to  be  seen 
when  Paul  reached  the  shores  of  Europe. 
Paul  could  not  find  him  at  Neapolis  nor 
even  at  Philippi.  Outside  the  Philippian 
gate  a  few  women  listened  to  the  first 
Christian  sermon  preached  in  Europe,  but 


24    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

the  "  man  of  Macedonia  "  was  conspicu- 
ous for  his  absence.  Europe  was  preoccu- 
pied with  her  business  and  pleasures,  and 
it  was  only  by  the  boldest  and  most  perse- 
vering exertions  that  the  apostle  succeeded 
in  opening  a  door  in  any  European  city. 
Europe  needed  the  Gospel  —  she  did  not 
want  it.  The  world  to-day  needs  young 
men  equipped  to  preach  the  Gospel,  but  it 
does  not  want  them.  Like  Saul  of  Tarsus 
they  must  fight  their  way  into  public  recog- 
nition assisted  by  some  good  Barnabas  or 
Silas  who  is  always  present  to  lend  a  help- 
ing hand,  and  instead  of  railing  at  a  world 
which  is  slow  to  crown  them  they  must 
build  for  themselves  the  thrones  from  which 
they  are  to  judge  the  tribes  of  Israel. 


Which  Doorf  25 


IV. 

Which  Boor? 

It  is  well  for  a  man  not  to  be  too  heav- 
ily weighted  with  theories  at  the  beginning 
of  his  career.  Otherwise  he  may  become 
so  entangled  as  to  be  crippled  for  life. 
Man  proposes  but  God  disposes,  and  the 
manner  of  his  disposition  is  often  marvel- 
ous in  our  eyes.  Precious  time  may  be 
squandered  in  a  fruitless  endeavor  to  bring 
the  Almighty  into  conformity  to  human 
expectations.  It  is  natural  for  a  minister 
to  have  his  preferences,  but  he  should  not 
insist  on  these  when  it  becomes  evident 
that  Heaven  prefers  something  else.  He 
should  not  draw  a  circle  round  a  limited 
area  of  land  and  say,  "Up  to  the  circumfer- 
ence of  that  circle  shall  my  activity  be  felt 


26    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

but  no  further."  A  man  who  says  that 
needs  to  reread  his  New  Testament.  The 
men  who  crowd  into  favored  localities 
already  overstocked  with  ministers  and 
stand  all  the  years  idle,  bitterly  complaining 
because  no  church  has  hired  them,  eking 
out  a  precarious  livelihood  by  snapping  up 
occasional  opportunities  to  preach  in  pul- 
pits temporarily  vacant,  are  not  men  to 
be  trusted  with  the  guidance  and  training 
of  Christians.  Ministers  of  the  Gospel 
should  be  made  of  more  heroic  stuff.  Old 
men  out  of  whom  the  years  have  taken 
the  lunge  and  the  fire  may  be  forgiven 
for  such  conduct ;  but  for  a  young  man  to 
hover  round  a  particular  city  like  a  moth 
round  a  candle,  forgetful  that  he  is  or- 
dained to  be  a  light  in  a  place  that  is  dark, 
is  an  exhibition  of  selfishness  which  ought 
to  doom  him  in  the  estimation  of  the 
Christian  public.  A  man  ought  to  preach 
not  where  he  wants  to  preach  but  where 
he  can  preach. 


Which  Door?  27 

Nor  is  it  wise  to  say,  "  I  will  begin  with 
a  small  church  and  none  other,"  or  "I 
will  start  in  the  country  and  later  on  come 
to  the  city."  The  theory  held  by  many 
that  every  minister  should  begin  in  a  small 
church  in  the  country  is  the  creation  of 
the  closet  and  not  to  be  universally  ac- 
cepted. Let  a  minister  begin  where  he 
can.  Some  men  are  more  mature  at 
twenty  than  others  at  forty.  Why  insist 
on  a  narrow  field  if  the  Lord  of  the  vine- 
yard points  out  a  wide  one .?  And  why 
insist  on  staying  in  the  country  if  circum- 
stances mould  themselves  into  a  trumpet 
through  which  a  voice  is  heard  saying, 
"  Arise,  go  into  the  city  and  it  shall  be  told 
thee  what  thou  must  do  .'* "  Ministers  as 
well  as  laymen  ought  to  surrender  them- 
selves to  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit,  and  in 
the  fire  of  the  Spirit  all  opinions  and 
theories  will  be  as  chaff.  A  young  man 
ought  to  go  through  the  widest  door  which 
swings  on  its  hinges  before  his  face.     But 


28    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

to  sit  down  before  a  narrow  open  door  re- 
fusing to  enter  it  because  of  a  hope  that  a 
wider  door  will  some  day  be  opened  is  the 
act  of  a  man  whose  life  is  guided  not  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  but  by  his  own  unholy 
ambitions. 

But  suppose  a  field  is  hard,  shall  a 
young  man  take  it  ?  Why  not  ?  All  fields 
when  known  at  first  hand  are  hard.  The 
easy  fields  of  which  we  sometimes  read 
exist  only  in  the  imagination.  Each  heart 
knows  its  own  bitterness  and  each  parish 
has  its  own  snags.  The  minister  whose 
life  seems  to  be  one  grand,  sweet  song  is 
found  to  be  a  heavily-laden  burden-bearer 
when  one  comes  close  enough  to  hear  his 
heart-beats.  There  is  not  that  difference 
in  parishes  which  the  unthinking  observer 
imagines.  Conspicuous  advantages  have 
their  manifold  subtractions,  and  striking 
losses  have  their  surprising  compensations. 
No  one  man  can  have  everything,  even  in 
the  ministry.    If  a  man  is  deprived  of  privi- 


Which  Door?  29 

leges  in  the  country  so  does  a  man  pay 
dearly  for  living  in  the  city.  If  a  small 
church  has  its  difficulties  and  distresses,  a 
large  church  is  not  free  from  complications 
and  perplexing  problems.  If  a  man  is 
afraid  of  fields  which  are  hard  never  let 
him  think  of  becoming  a  minister.  A 
field  reputedly  hard  ought  to  have  pecu- 
liar fascination  for  a  man  who  has  grit. 
If  a  dozen  men  have  failed  in  it  the  charm 
ought  to  be  all  the  greater.  Woe  to  the 
minister  who  is  looking  for  an  easy  job  ! 
There  is  more  hope  for  a  fool  than  for  him. 
And  as  for  the  church  being  small,  that  is 
nothing  against  it.  It  is  'the  glory  of  a 
small  church  that  it  can  grow.  To  see  a 
church  grow  is  one  of  the  deepest  joys 
a  minister  can  know.  What  greater  privi- 
lege could  a  young  man  ask  than  that  of 
taking  a  little  church  and  by  a  process  of 
nurture  carried  on  through  patient  years 
causing  that  church  through  the  blessing 
of  God  to  develop  until    it    becomes  the 


30  Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

crown  of  the  community,  the  center  of 
wide  regions  whose  people  look  to  it  for 
impulse  and  guidance  ?  What  a  glowing, 
gladdening  task  compared  with  that  of  a 
man  who  takes  a  large  church  whose  limit 
of  growth  has  been  already  reached,  and 
for  which  the  years  contain  no  brighter 
prospect  than  that  of  successfully  resisting 
the  processes  of  disintegration  and  decay  ! 
It  is  not  becoming  in  young  men  fresh 
from  school  to  be  over  particular  about 
either  geography  or  finance.  A  man  can- 
not tell  how  much  he  is  worth  in  the  pul- 
pit by  computing  the  amount  of  money  he 
has  expended  on  his  education.  Nor  ought 
he  with  a  flourish  dictate  to  churches  the 
lowest  terms  at  which  his  services  can  be 
secured.  A  man  with  a  wife  and  ten 
children  may  be  excused  for  making  sun- 
dry inquiries  concerning  the  salary,  but  a 
young  man  unencumbered  should  seek 
first  of  all  a  chance  to  work,  and  finding 
this,    all   necessary  things  will  be   added 


Which  Door?  31 

unto  him.  The  men  who  put  salary  first 
and  church  second  are  usually  the  men 
whose  salary  never  increases.  A  man 
who  will  not  preach  at  all  unless  some 
church  puts  into  his  palm  the  precise  sum 
which  he  thinks  his  preaching  worth  ought 
to  be  left  to  die  with  all  his  sermons  in 
him.  Young  men  with  the  ribbon  on 
their  diploma  still  unfaded  ought  not  to  go 
into  the  market  shouting  —  "So  many 
sermons  for  so  many  dollars !  "  The 
supreme  question  is,  "  Where  can  I  work  ? 
Where  will  the  followers  of  Christ  give  me 
a  chance  to  work?  Where  can  I  make 
my  life  count  for  most  in  the  extension  of 
the  kingdom  .?  "  The  man  who  goes  into 
the  world  with  these  queries  burning  in 
his  heart  will  not  long  be  without  a  con- 
gregation, nor  will  he  lack  shelter  and  rai- 
ment and  food. 

If  however  the  time  of  waiting  is  longer 
than  he  anticipated  let  him  not  be  despair- 
ful.    If  one  door  after  another  is  slammed 


32    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

in  his  face,  let  him  keep  on  knocking.  If 
one  field  after  another  fades  from  his  eyes, 
let  him  keep  on  seeking.  If  these  dis- 
appointments move  him  he  was  never  fore- 
ordained for  the  ministry.  Men  who  are 
worthy  of  the  Christian  pulpit  will  get  into 
it  though  they  climb  to  it  over  obstacles 
high  as  the  Alps,  and  over  Himalayas  of 
disappointment.  It  may  be  necessary  for 
a  time  to  earn  one's  bread  by  secular 
employment ;  but  if  the  man  has  been 
chosen  by  the  Lord,  he  will  sometime, 
somehow,  somewhere  overcome  the  last 
opposing  circumstance  and  enter  into  the 
joy  of  ministerial  service.  A  Scotchman 
who  knocked  in  vain  while  a  young  man 
at  the  door  of  twenty-three  churches  and 
filled  ten  years  with  patient  waiting,  be- 
came at  last  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
and  influential  preachers  of  his  generation. 


Starts  Good  and  Bad.  33 


V. 

Starts  Good  and  Bad, 

"All's  well  that  ends  well,"  but  in 
order  that  one  may  end  well  there  should 
be  a  good  beginning.  A  bad  start  in  a 
pastorate  is  disastrous.  The  blunders  of 
the  first  few  weeks  may  throw  a  shadow 
over  many  years.  When  the  minister  goes 
into  his  new  parish  he  ought  to  give  him- 
self at  once  to  his  supreme  task,  feeding 
the  sheep.  Whatever  else  a  minister  may 
be,  he  is  first  of  all  a  shepherd.  To  feed 
the  people  entrusted  to  his  keeping  is  his 
first  and  most  urgent  duty.  If  he  attends 
first  of  all  to  this  and  keeps  on  attending 
to  it  blessed  is  he. 

But  if  he  begins,  as  many  a  man  has 
begun,  by  endeavoring  to  show  the  sheep 


34    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

what  a  wonderful  man  he  is,  he  will  wreck 
the  peace  of  many  days.  If,  for  instance, 
he  spends  his  first  Sunday  in  the  discus- 
sion of  some  such  useless  theme  as,  "  The 
relation  of  the  Pastor  to  the  Church,"  the 
hungry  sheep  in  spite  of  all  their  looking 
up  will  go  away  unfed.  Not  even  a  goat 
can  find  nutriment  in  any  such  juiceless 
discussion.  A  minister  is  a  servant  and  it 
ill  becomes  a  servant  to  come  into  the 
presence  of  those  he  serves  with  an 
analysis  of  abstract  relationships  on  his 
lips.  When  we  hire  a  servant  to  feed  us 
we  want  him  to  put  the  dishes  on  the 
table :  what  he  thinks  of  our  relations  to 
him  and  of  him  to  us  will  come  out  in  the 
way  in  which  he  does  his  work.  If  he 
postpones  the  dinner  in  order  to  enlighten 
us  concerning  our  mutual  obligations  we 
are  in  no  mood  to  appreciate  his  ideas  or 
to  accept  his  conclusions.  A  servant  who 
calls  attention  to  himself  rather  than  to 
the   dinner   is   a   servant   who   does    not 


Starts  Good  and  Bad.  35 

understand  his  business.  The  minister 
who  on  the  first  Sunday  magnifies  himself 
by  telling  his  hearers  what  he  has  a  right 
to  expect  of  them  and  what  they  may 
properly  demand  of  him,  is  guilty  of  an 
indiscretion  for  which  he  may  be  forgiven, 
but  which  a  man  of  tact  will  not  commit. 
Do  what  he  may,  the  minister  on  his 
opening  Sundays  is  sufficiently  in  the 
public  eye,  and  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom 
for  him  to  obliterate  himself  so  far  as 
possible  in  the  humble  work  of  feeding 
the  sheep.  To  keep  the  eyes  of  a  con- 
gregation steadfastly  fixed  on  Christ  is 
wisdom  always,  but  it  is  never  quite  so 
important  as  on  those  first  searching 
Sundays  when  eyes  as  yet  untrained  to 
love  are  prone  to  find  and  magnify  defects. 
"  A  mother  does  not  read  to  her  newborn 
baby  an  essay  on  the  obligations  of  ma- 
ternity—she feeds  it:"  so  spoke  one  of 
the  greatest  of  modern  preachers  to  a 
company  of   students  years  ago,   his  con- 


36    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

tention  being  that  a  preacher  who  goes 
before  a  new  congregation  with  a  discus- 
sion of  mutual  obligations  is  as  foolish  as 
a  woman  would  be  who  should  postpone 
the  feeding  of  her  baby  for  a  disser- 
tation on  the  relations  of  parent  and 
child. 

Nor  should  the  new  minister  convert  his 
earliest  sermons  into  programs  of  parochial 
work.  We  are  living  in  a  driving  age,  but 
it  is  possible  for  a  clergyman  to  drive  too 
fast.  A  minister  of  the  Gospel  is  not  a 
sheep-driver,  but  a  sheep-feeder.  The  for- 
mer inevitably  gets  himself  into  trouble, 
especially  if  he  manifests  his  driving  pro- 
pensities the  first  week.  For  a  stranger  to 
come  into  a  parish  and  proceed  forthwith 
to  tell  his  hearers  what  he  expects  them  to 
do  borders  closely  on  the  impertinent. 
Why  not  first  of  all  feed  the  sheep .?  To 
feed  sheep  does  not  smack  of  presumption 
nor  does  it  stir  up  opposition.  Sheep  like 
to  be  fed.     They  never  resist.     When  re- 


Starts   Good  and  Bad.  37 

peatedly  fed  by  the  same  shepherd  they 
will  follow  him  whithersoever  he  leads 
them.  He  can  shear  them  again  and 
again,  and  weave  their  wool  into  all  sorts 
of  lovely  patterns  for  the  glory  of  God,  but 
when  the  new  minister  attempts  to  shear  a 
a  flock  of  strange  sheep  the  first  day  be- 
fore noon  he  usually  precipitates  a  furious 
scrimmage  which  is  likely  to  leave  the 
shepherd  discomfited  and  out  of  breath. 
Many  a  man  has  complained  bitterly  of  the 
foolishness  and  stubbornness  of  his  sheep, 
who  would  have  had  no  trouble  had  he  only 
placed  the  feeding  before  the  shearing. 
No  sentence  more  momentous  for  clergy- 
men lies  between  the  lids  of  the  Bible  than 
the  little  sentence  which  too  many  of  the 
successors  of  the  Apostles  have  in  every 
age  overlooked.     ''  Feed  my  sheep." 

Nor  should  there  be  undue  haste  in 
knocking  to  pieces  the  contrivances  which 
the  former  minister  created.  These  things 
should   be   allowed   to   stand,  if   not   for- 


38    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

ever,  at  least  till  day  after  to-morrow.  Other 
men  have  labored  and  the  new  minister 
should  enter  into  their  labors,  not  stamp 
upon  them.  To  begin  afresh  as  though 
all  who  have  gone  before  him  were  drones 
or  dunces  is  not  commendable.  Every 
minister  must  do  his  work  in  his  own  way, 
and  it  is  natural  that  a  man  should  feel 
himself  capable  of  making  sundry  improve- 
ments over  the  methods  of  his  predecessor, 
but  this  predecessor  was  probably  not  so 
great  a  blunderbuss  as  he  appears  to  the 
man  who  comes  after  him.  No  matter 
with  what  wisdom  and  fidelity  a  man  may 
labor  he  leaves  a  parish  in  an  unsatisfactory 
condition.  Everything  is  incomplete,  much 
is  perverted  and  wrong,  there  is  more  or 
less  friction,  appalling  inefficiency,  and  on 
all  sides  a  wide  chasm  yawns  between  the 
actual  and  ideal.  A  new  man  on  com- 
ing into  such  a  field  —  especially  if  he  be 
without  experience  —  is  apt  to  feel  that 
things   would   not    be    as    they   are    had 


Starts  Good  and  Bad.  39 

his  predecessor  done  his  work  with  greater 
abiUty  and  wisdom.  Upon  this  departed 
man  as  upon  a  scapegoat  are  saddled  all 
the  sins  of  the  parish,  and  the  new  Pastor, 
eager  to  prove  himself  superior  to  all  who 
have  gone  before  him,  proceeds  to  break  to 
pieces  the  parochial  machinery,  and  to 
create  a  new  set  of  agencies  which  will 
usher  in  the  golden  age.  Poor  man,  later 
on  he  will  discover  under  a  juniper  tree 
that  he  is  no  better  than  his  fathers. 

Do  not  be  in  a  hurry,  brethren,  to  revo- 
lutionize the  constitution  and  by-laws  of 
your  parish  before  your  parish  learns  to 
trust  your  judgment  and  comes  to  occupy 
your  view-point.  You  may  be  able  to  intro- 
duce an  improvement  here  and  there  as  the 
years  come  and  go,  but  please  wait  until 
after  dinner  before  you  start.  There  is  a 
conservative  instinct  implanted  by  the 
Almighty  in  the  human  heart  for  the  pur- 
pose of  safe-guarding  the  world  from  the 
folly  of  fussy  reformers,  and  against  this 


40    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

instinct  as  against  a  Damascus  blade  a 
minister  hurls  himself  if  feverishly  ambi- 
tious to  make  all  things  new.  Instead  of 
splitting  former  societies  and  methods  into 
kindling  wood  why  not  be  content  to  feed 
the  sheep  ?  Feeding  sheep  involves  no 
perils,  whereas  kindling-wood  may  lead  to  a 
conflagration. 


The  Foremost  of  the  Demons,       41 


VI. 

The  Foremost  of  the  Demons, 

To  all  the  sons  of  Adam  there  comes 
the  temptation  to  be  lazy,  and  therefore 
let  the  minister  beware.  It  is  not  true, 
as  some  men  think,  that  all  clergymen 
are  lazy,  but  it  is  true  that  they  like  other 
men  are  tempted,  and  alas,  too  many  of 
them  succumb.  Intellectual  indolence  is 
far  more  common  than  is  generally  sup- 
posed. Mental  activity,  except  in  rare 
cases,  is  not  congenital,  but  an  achieve- 
ment. The  average  man  is  prone  to 
follow  the  line  of  least  resistance,  and 
unless  the  angels  of  his  better  nature 
repeatedly  bring  him  back,  he  will  wander 
far  away  from  close  and  continuous  mental 
toil. 


42    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

Many  a  minister  is  indolent  without 
realizing  how  indolent  he  is.  It  is  pos- 
sible to  entertain  demons  as  well  as 
angels  unawares.  Not  infrequently  a 
man  will  fuss  and  bustle  over  miscella- 
neous matters,  giving  the  parish  the  im- 
pression of  tremendous  diligence,  while 
all  the  time  his  intellect  is  a  dawdler  at 
its  work.  A  man  intellectually  lazy  will 
do  anything  rather  than  whip  his  mind  to 
mental  exercise.  He  will  scamper  over 
the  parish  and  astonish  the  county  by 
the  number  of  his  parochial  visits.  He 
will  multiply  organizations  and  manipu- 
late them  with  a  dexterity  quite  amazing. 
He  will  engage  in  all  sorts  of  schemes 
and  enterprizes  to  maintain  the  inter- 
est of  the  people,  rather  than  buckle 
down  to  hard,  exacting,  redeeming  men- 
tal labor.  There  are  many  Bible  sen- 
tences appropriate  for  mottoes  to  be 
hung  on  the  wall  of  the  minister's  study, 
but    not    one   them   has  in   it   a    greater 


The  Foremost  of  the  Demons.        43 

wealth  of  needed  warning  than  the  Hebrew 
proverb  — 

•'  Go  to  the  ant,  thou  sluggard, 
Consider  her  ways  and  be  wise." 

It  was  the  conviction  of  the  Hebrew 
sages  that  idleness  is  ruinous,  and  that 
if  a  man  prefers  ease  to  labor  his  poverty 
will  come  as  a  robber  and  his  want  as  an 
armed  man.  The  robber  has  already 
overtaken  many  a  clergyman  and  the 
armed  man  is  on  the  track  of  many 
another. 

What  other  man  has  such  urgent 
reasons  for  being  diligent  as  a  minister  ? 
If  he  is  indolent  his  sin  will  find  him  out, 
and  so  will  everybody  else.  Other  men 
can  more  easily  conceal  their  mental 
sloth  for  most  of  them  do  their  work  as 
it  were  in  a  comer.  But  the  minister  is 
a  public  character  and  when  he  speaks 
whatever  rust  is  on  his  mind  is  seen. 
A  scraggy,  scrambling  prayer,  a  raveled, 
jfaded    style,  a  juiceless,  pithless    sermon, 


44    Qt^^iet  Hints  to   Groiving  Preachers. 

what  are  these  but  weeds  in  the  garden 
of  a  man  who  has  folded  his  mental 
hands  ?  No  man  can  long  be  interesting 
in  the  pulpit  who  does  not  think.  No 
man  can  think  wisely  who  does  not  study. 
Constant  mental  application  is  the  price 
a  minister  must  pay  for  power.  When 
men  cross  the  deadline  under  seventy  it 
is  ordinarily  because  they  have  ceased 
to  develop  new  cells  in  the  gray  matter 
of  their  brain.  They  may  have  been 
students  once  but  their  early  studies 
cannot  save  them.  A  parish  soon  dis- 
covers when  the  minister  is  trusting  to 
his  diploma  and  has  put  his  mind  to 
bed. 

The  necessity  for  unceasing  labor  lies 
in  the  nature  of  the  minister's  work. 
He  is  a  public  teacher  always  teaching. 
If  he  spoke  less  frequently  his  words 
would  carry  greater  weight.  He  does 
not  get  credit  for  the  ability  and  worth 
which   he  actually  possesses,  for   nothing 


The  Foremost  of  the  Demons.       45 

so  dulls  the  sense  of  appreciation  as 
familiarity.  Any  man  of  intelligence  en- 
dowed with  a  gift  of  expression  can  preach 
one  sermon.  Many  men  can  preach 
seven.  A  few  men  can  preach  seven 
times  seven.  But  seventy  times  seven  is 
the  work  of  every  preacher.  It  is  this 
incessant  creation  of  new  sermons  which 
constitutes  the  crowning  test.  How  to 
keep  the  reservoir  full  — that  is  the  tor- 
menting problem.  Nothing  short  of 
Herculean  labor  will  solve  it.  Much  of 
the  charm  of  public  speech  lies  in  the 
freshness  of  the  speaker's  accents,  in  the 
novelty  of  his  cadences,  in  the  newness 
of  his  view-point,  in  the  surprises  of  his 
rhetoric,  in  the  unexpected  disclosures  of 
his  personality  as  revealed  in  his  maner- 
isms.  But  to  a  minister  all  these  charms 
are  denied.  His  voice,  rhetoric,  concep- 
tions, figures,  oddities,  soon  become  a 
tale  that  is  told,  and  he  has  nothing  to 
rely  on  but  the  earnestness  of   his  spirit 


46    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

and  the  energy  of  his  thought.  Laymen 
forget  this  when  they  compare  clergymen 
with  interesting  speakers  whom  they  hear 
but  once.  They  hear  a  man  speak  at  a 
banquet  or  on  the  rostrum,  and  go  home 
saying,  ^<Ah,  if  we  could  have  preaching 
like  that !  What  a  brainy  and  interesting 
man  !  "  In  all  probability  he  is  no  brain- 
ier or  brighter  than  their  preacher. 
Let  this  fascinating  speaker  speak  ten 
times  to  the  same  audience  and  his  bril- 
liancy will  fade  a  little.  Let  him  give 
fifty  addresses  and  his  freshness  will  van- 
ish as  the  dew.  Let  him  speak  five  hun- 
dred times  and  he  might  turn  out  to  be 
as  dull  and  stupid  as  a  preacher.  A  man 
may  be  brilliant  once  or  twice,  but  not  all 
the  time.  Nothing  grows  stale  so  soon 
as  brilliancy.  Learning  may  overwhelm 
at  first  but  after  we  have  lived  with  it 
for  a  season  we  cease  to  be  impressed. 
Eccentricities  of  voice  and  gesture  are 
delicious  on  their  first  appearance,  but  by 


The  Foremost  of  the  Demons.        47 

aad  by  they  become  intolerable.  If  the 
editors  and  professors  and  college  presi- 
dents and  other  critics  who  say  and  write 
bold  things  against  the  pulpit  should 
attempt  to  discourse  twice  a  week  to  the 
same  congregation  for  ten  or  twenty 
years  they  might  find  themselves  as  prosy 
and  stale  and  repetitious  as  the  luckless 
culprits  they  now  condemn.  If  then  the 
industrious  can  hardly  stand  what  shall 
the  lazy  do? 

Get  out  of  the  pulpit  or  go  to  work. 
To  be  a  preacher  and  a  preacher  whom 
the  years  cannot  wear  thin,  a  man  must 
be  a  painstaking,  indefatigable,  everlasting 
worker.  He  must  have  a  genius  for  toil. 
He  must  be  willing  to  drudge  and  dig 
and  grind.  He  must  lay  out  his  lines 
of  study  and  pursue  them  doggedly  and 
unconquerably  through  the  years.  He 
must  forsake  cheap  papers  and  beware 
of  books  published  for  mental  babes.  He 
must    trounce     his     mind    whenever    he 


48    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

catches  it  dawdling  or  slouching  or  loun- 
ging. He  must  quit  pottering  over  inci- 
dentals and  conundrums  and  wrestle  with 
the  great  doctrines  and  dragons.  He 
must  give  himself  soul  and  body  to  his 
work  with  the  devotion  and  fidelity  of  a 
slave  whose  heart  has  been  redeemed  by 
a  master  who  renders  to  every  man  accor- 
ding to  his  work,  and  creates  a  heaven 
for  every  soul  to  whom  he  says,  **Well 
done  ! " 


Cowardice,  49 


VII. 

Cowardice, 

If  a  minister  is  willing  to  live  laborious 
days  he  is  in  the  way  of  being  saved  but 
his  salvation  is  not  assured.  He  may  be 
stricken  down  in  the  midst  of  arduous 
labor  by  cowardice.  It  is  easy  to  call 
preachers  cowards.  Cowardice  is  the  sin 
of  which  they  have  been  accused  from 
the  beginning.  It  is  an  ugly  insulting 
word,  and  to  hurl  it  has  been  the  pas- 
time of  all  enemies  of  the  church. 

But  it  is  easier  to  call  a  man  a  coward 
than  to  prove  him  one.  To  some  men  a 
man  is  always  a  dastard  who  refuses  to  do 
what  they  think  he  ought  to  do.  That 
makes  swift  work  of  a  man  who  must  be 
gotten  rid  of.     If  you  cannot  answer  his 


50    Quiet  Hiftts  to  Growing  Preachers. 

argument  or  understand  his   conduct   call 
him  a  coward  and  leave  him. 

Now  it  is  impossible  for  a  minister  to 
do  everything  which  every  man  would  like 
to  see  him  do,  or  to  say  everything  which 
men  who  are  self-consituted  judges  insist 
that  he  must  say.  He  must  be  guided  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  so  far  as  he  can  ascertain 
what  this  guidance  is,  but  even  when  fol- 
lowing the  manifest  leading  of  the  Spirit 
he  is  sure  to  disappoint  and  nettle  persons 
who  follow  nothing  but  their  passions, 
prejudices  and  whims.  To  many  men  in 
Palestine  Jesus  was  the  greatest  coward 
in  Hebrew  history.  And  really  they  could 
make  out  a  strong  case  against  him.  He 
declined  to  answer  plain  questions  which 
the  crowd  put  to  him.  He  avoided  taking 
sides  in  contentions  of  national  importance. 
He  refused  to  strike  a  blow  at  the  Roman 
Empire,  the  embodiment  of  all  villamy 
and  the  oppressor  of  God's  people.  Re- 
peatedly he  dodged  his  enemies  in  order 


Cowardice.  5 ' 

to  save  his  life,  and  he  maintained  a 
silence  oftentimes  which  it  was  impossible 
to  justify  or  explain.  So  it  seemed  to 
men  who  stood  close  to  him  and  studied 
his  career.  But  now  that  we  behold  his 
life  in  its  true  perspective  we  see  how 
egregiously  mistaken  his  maligners  were, 
for  in  him  we  behold  courage  at  its  climax, 
the  very  incarnation  of  moral  heroism. 
No  true  man  can  live  a  faithful  life  with- 
out appearing  to  men  of  less  insight  and 
wisdom  a  recreant  and  coward. 

But  nevertheless  the  temptation  to  min- 
isterial cowardice  is  genuine  and  constant. 
A  man  may  be  a  coward  without  knowing 
it.  The  greatest  cowards  are  often  the 
most  confident  of  their  heroism.  It  is 
true,  as  Thomas  Fuller  used  to  say,  that 
there  is  much  terra  incognita  in  a  man's 
own  heart.  This  is  true  even  of  men 
given  to  introspection  and  patient  self- 
examination.  Satan  gives  one  convincing 
reason    why    his    chosen    course    is    best, 


52    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

and  takes  him  along  the  downward  course 
so  gradually  he  is  not  conscious  of  the 
descent. 

Surely  no  minister  can  be  other  than 
a  coward  unless  strength  be  given  him 
from  above.  All  things  conspire  to  make 
him  calculating  and  faint-hearted.  Civili- 
zation is  built  on  the  principle  that  the 
chief  end  of  man  is  to  please.  All  society 
recognizes  this.  Well-bred  people  are 
trained  not  to  say  anything  in  the  parlor 
that  contradicts  or  hurts.  The  com- 
mercial world  is  built  on  the  same  foun- 
dation. The  merchant  lives  to  please  his 
customers.  He  caters  to  their  wishes,  he 
anticipates  their  wants.  He  bends  to 
every  whim  and  mood,  puts  up  with  their 
criticisms  and  unreasonablenesses,  makes 
himself  a  swift-footed  servant,  and  counts 
himself  successful  if,  at  any  sacrifice  of 
personal  wish  or  comfort,  he  can  sell  his 
goods.  Hotel  managers  live  to  please 
their  guests.      What    any   guest    desires 


Cowardice  53 

that  is  the  thing  which  he  shall  have,  for 
hotel  guests  must  be  humored.  After 
people  have  been  petted,  indulged  and 
flattered  by  those  who  serve  them  through 
the  week  they  are  in  no  mood  to  be 
crossed  or  rebuked  by  a  man  in  the  pulpit 
on  Sunday.  They  do  not  want  to  be 
reminded  of  their  sins,  nor  do  they  relish 
the  personal,  passionate  appeal  for  self- 
crucifixion  ;  and  the  preacher  knowing  this 
is  in  constant  peril  of  tempering  his  mes- 
sage to  their  wishes.  If  the  failure  to 
speak  with  sufficient  plainness  of  sin  —  a 
failure  widespread  and  notorious  —  is  not 
due  to  cowardice,  how  shall  we  explain  it } 
A  preacher  is  a  leader  of  thought. 
More  light  is  continually  breaking  out  of 
the  Bible.  The  facts  of  our  religion  never 
change,  but  the  interpretation  of  these  facts 
widens  with  the  process  of  the  suns.  Sa- 
cred phraseology  grows  antiquated  and 
must  be  discarded,  ancient  conceptions 
must  be  left  behind.     But  many  Christians 


54    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

do  not  read.  Still  fewer  of  them  think. 
In  every  congregation  there  are  good  men 
and  women  who  cling  to  the  old  phrases 
and  the  old  interpretations  long  after  they 
have  become  obsolete  to  the  world  of 
thinking  men.  They  are  suspicious  of  new 
terms  and  alarmed  by  new  expositions  and 
fear  exceedingly  lest  the  ark  of  the  Lord 
be  upset.  What  is  the  preacher  to  do  1 
To  hurt  an  ignorant  saint  is  not  pleasant 
and  to  mar  the  peace  of  a  congregation  is 
distressing,  and  yet  the  minister  as  leader 
of  God's  people  must  often  do  what  the 
Man  of  Galilee  did,  shock  the  sensibilities 
of  the  pious  by  tearing  old  traditions  to 
tatters.  A  leader  of  thought  must  follow 
the  unmistakable  guidance  of  the  Spirit  no 
matter  what  commotion  may  be  stirred  up 
in  his  parochial  teapot. 

It  is  hazardous  to  lay  one's  finger  on 
any  man  and  say,  "  Thou  art  a  coward  !  " 
But  when  one  sees  how  many  giant  evils 
are  intrenched  in  our  Christian  civilization, 


Cowardice.  5  5 

and  how  many  injustices  on  every  side  go 
unrebuked  and  unredressed,  he  cannot  sup- 
press misgivings  which  keep  rising  in  his 
heart  that  the  clergy  as  a  whole  have  failed 
to  exhibit  the  dauntless  daring  of  the  Man 
who  once  drove  a  pack  of  mercenary  ped- 
lers  from  the  court  of  the  Jerusalem  tem- 
ple. No  more  magnificent  company  of 
heroes  have  added  luster  to  the  ages  than 
the  intrepid  warriors  who  have  led  the 
world  from  Christian  pulpits,  but  when  we 
read  the  history  of  the  last  nineteen  hun- 
dred years  and  see  how  closely  we  have  re- 
produced the  bloody  record  of  the  Hebrew 
people,  the  sons  in  each  generation  build- 
ing the  sepulchers  of  the  prophets  whom 
the  fathers  killed,  the  conviction  is  borne 
in  upon  us  that  fewer  of  these  tragedies 
would  have  come  to  pass  if  more  religious 
leaders  had  bravely  followed  in  their  day 
and  generation  the  light  which  the  Holy 
Spirit  was  willing  to  bestow.  One  likes  to 
believe  that  if  every  minister  of  the  Gospel 


56    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

would  speak  out  clearly  the  word  of  the 
Lord  as  it  is  made  known  to  him,  the 
church  would  have  a  continuous  and  joyous 
progress  into  Christian  truth,  and  Christian 
history  would  not  be  what  it  has  thus  far 
been,  a  series  of  vast  upheavals  and  reigns 
of  terror,  every  dawn  being  wild  with  thun- 
der-peals and  every  forward  step  marked 
by  a  new  Golgotha. 

Brethren,  have  you  been  silent  concern- 
ing the  colossal  evils,  the  burning  questions 
of  our  day  ?  Silence  is  often  the  coward's 
cave.  Have  you  struck  evil  with  all  your 
might,  not  the  evil  of  patriarchal  times  but 
the  evil  which  has  lifted  itself  in  your  own 
parish  }  Have  you  gone  on  boldly  in  front 
of  your  people,  imposing  broad  views  on 
narrow  hearts,  endeavoring  to  lead  both 
young  and  old  into  the  new  conceptions 
and  interpretations  which  modern  scholar- 
ship has  forced  upon  the  world }  If  you 
have  not  done  these  things  it  might  be  well 
to  ask  yourselves  the  reason  Why. 


Impatience.  57 


VIII. 

Impatience, 

But  it  is  possible  to  be  too  bold.  All 
virtues  when  pushed  too  far  degenerate 
into  vices.  Excessive  boldness  is  reckless- 
ness, and  recklessness  wrecks  a  church. 
Some  ministers  are  so  afraid  of  being 
cowards  they  make  themselves  a  nuisance 
by  marching  always  on  the  war-path. 
They  count  a  Sunday  lost  on  which  they 
do  not  preach  a  new  crusade.  Denuncia- 
tion is  their  forte,  and  to  scalp  a  hoary- 
headed  sin  is  the  aim  of  every  sermon. 
But  the  human  heart  cannot  live  on  ana- 
themas. In  the  economy  of  preaching  as 
in  that  of  Nature  thunderbolts  have  their 
place,  but  in  the  pulpit  as  in  Nature  there 
must  be  abundant  sun  and  seasons  filled 


58    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

with  bloom  and  holy  calm.  The  twenty, 
sixth  chapter  of  Matthew's  Gospel  must 
be  followed  by  the  fourteenth  chapter  of 
John.  A  man  may  be  courageous  when 
not  trampling  abominations  under  his  feet. 
One  may  mistake  an  undue  development 
of  the  red  Indian  in  him  for  a  manifesta- 
tion of  saving  grace.  Spunk  is  good,  but 
the  servant  of  the  Lord  must  be  some- 
thing more  than  fighting-cock  or  bull-dog. 
Evils  cannot  be  battered  into  dust  by  the 
ceaseless  lashings  of  vociferous  tongues : 
they  are  disintegrated  by  the  atmosphere 
created  by  the  unfolding  of  great  ideas. 
Ministers  must  be  patient. 

When  William  Pitt  declared  that  the 
quality  most  essential  for  a  successful 
Prime  Minister  is  Patience,  he  gave  utter- 
ance to  words  which  contain  a  hint  for 
every  man  whose  business  it  is  to  work 
with  men.  No  man  either  in  church  or 
state  can  carry  beneficent  enterprises  to 
their    consummation   who   lacks  a  patient 


(( 


Inipatieftce.  59 

spirit.  Probably  no  other  single  sin  works 
such  havoc  in  the  Christian  church  as  the 
impatience  of  her  ministers. 

It  is  characteristic  of  average  human 
nature  to  move  but  slowly  toward  those 
goals  upon  which  Christ  bids  men  set  their 
eyes.  It  is  likewise  human  to  cling  to 
customs  old  and  tried,  rather  than  to  enter 
upon  paths  which  are  new.  It  is  a  minis- 
ter's work  to  lead,  not  simply  one  man,  but 
a  company  of  men  from  one  position  to 
another,  and  then  another,  along  that  up- 
ward and  difficult  road,  and  unless  his 
spirit  is  held  in  firm  restraint  he  will  not 
be  able  to  brook  delays  or  endure  the 
oppositions  and  retrogressions  which  are 
sure  to  come. 

A  leader  of  men  must  be  patient  with 
them.  Even  the  malcontents  and  the 
cranks  must  not  be  snubbed  or  squelched. 
Some  ministers  cannot  endure  the  presence 
of  even  one  man  whose  heart  is  not  with 
them,  and  proceed  forthwith  to  harry  him 


6o    Quiet  Hints  to   Growing  Preachers. 

out  of  the  parish.  Unless  this  man  is  got- 
ten rid  of  there  can  be  no  peace  in  the 
ministerial  bosom.  But  in  rooting  out  the 
offender  what  damage  may  be  wrought. 
The  tares  always  grow  close  to  the  wheat, 
and  one  cannot  be  uprooted  without  dam- 
aging the  other.  If  a  preacher  is  only 
patient,  Death  may  come  to  his  assistance, 
and  remove  the  tare  without  touching  the 
wheat.  A  beautiful,  indispensable  friend 
is  Death  !  He  saves  preachers  from  de- 
spair when  they  see  certain  parishioners 
flourish  like  a  green  bay  tree.  If  men's 
sins  are  to  be  patiently  endured,  much 
more  worthy  of  gentle  consideration  are 
their  stupidities  and  frailties.  It  is  the 
province  of  the  preacher  to  see  the  New 
Jerusalem  hovering  in  the  air,  but  he  ought 
not  to  break  the  skulls  of  the  saints  in  his 
haste  to  get  the  fair  city  squarely  located 
on  the  earth.  Every  man  who  sees  visions 
and  dreams  dreams  cannot  but  yearn  to 
have  his  parish  far  different  from  what  it 


Impatience.  6 1 

is,  and  to  change  whatever  seems  to  hinder 
the  free  development  of  church  Hfe  along 
the  lines  of  largest  usefulness  is  certainly 
a  laudable  ambition.  But  in  making 
changes  a  minister  should  ponder  Josh 
Billings's  counsel  to  young  men,  "  If  you 
want  to  get  along  quick,  go  slow."  Be- 
cause a  thing  is  good  it  does  not  follow 
the  parish  must  have  it  before  sunset. 
That  the  preacher  wants  it  is  not  suffi- 
cient reason  why  the  parish  should  bow 
sweetly  and  instantly  to  his  will.  Things 
which  are  accepted  willingly  are  the  only 
things  which  a  minister  can  establish  in 
his  parish  to  the  edification  of  his  people. 
Whatever  is  forced  upon  them,  even 
though  excellent  in  itself,  causes  an  irri- 
tation which  offsets  whatever  service  it 
might  have  been  expected  to  render.  The 
momentary  gratification  which  comes  to  a 
man  who  succeeds  in  having  his  way  is 
poor  compensation  when  it  is  secured  at 
the  sacrifice  of   the    sympathy   and    good 


62    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

will  of  the  people.  A  minister  ought  to 
learn  how  to  stand  and  wait.  If  a  man  is 
x:onvinced  in  his  own  mind  that  a  certain 
step  is  advantageous  for  his  people,  and 
his  people  will  not  let  him  take  it,  let  him 
not  lie  down  and  turn  his  face  to  the  wall, 
watering  his  couch  with  his  tears,  neither 
let  him  stride  stormfully  across  his  people's 
wishes  doing  the  thing  of  which  they 
disapprove,  but  let  him  be  resolute  and 
patient. 

"  Men's  souls  are  narrow ;  let  them  grow, 
My  brothers,  we  must  wait." 

A  congregation  is  composed  of  pupils  in 
various  stages  of  development,  and  the 
wise  preacher  remembers  this  in  the  prep- 
aration of  his  sermons.  The  congregation 
is  a  flock  of  sheep.  Many  sheep  can  walk 
but  slowly,  some  of  the  lambs  must  be 
carried,  while  an  occasional  old  ram  must 
be  dealt  with  with  discretion.  It  is  the 
business  of  the  shepherd  to  be  ahead  of 
his  sheep,  but  he  must  not  be  so  far   in 


Impatience.  6^^ 

advance  as  to  be  out  of  sight.  If  he  gets 
too  far  ahead  a  sense  of  superiority  may- 
take  possession  of  him,  and  this  may  pass 
into  a  feeUng  of  contempt.  New  found 
truth  —  says  Carlyle  —  like  new  got  gold 
burns  the  pockets  until  it  is  spent.  The 
clerical  miner  who  has  been  digging  gold 
all  week  coins  it  and  throws  it  down  before 
his  people  on  Sunday  with  an  air  which 
says :  "If  you  do  not  accept  this  you  are 
benighted !  "  Ministers  should  imitate  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  guide  men  into  the  truth. 
Too  many  of  them  try  to  take  their  hearers 
into  truth  on  the  jump.  If  a  man  has  ad- 
vanced ideas,  he  must  give  his  people  time 
to  catch  up  with  them.  Many  a  good  man 
in  his  eagerness  to  display  his  emancipa- 
tion from  the  past  has  by  his  headlong 
impetuosity  closed  the  hearts  of  his  best 
people,  and  rendered  impossible  the 
achievement  of  that  which  was  dearest  to 
his  heart. 

Brethren,  study  the  life  of  Jesus  for  the 


64    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

high  art  of  reticence  and  reserve.  "  I  have 
many  things  to  say  unto  you  but  you  can- 
not bear  them  now  : "  so  he  said  and  says. 
The  mind  cannot  be  forced.  New  truth 
cannot  be  hammered  into  the  heart  even 
by  a  man  fresh  from  the  Seminary.  Old 
interpretations  are  sloughed  off  and  new 
conceptions  find  entrance  into  the  mind 
only  as  the  affections  are  enriched  and  the 
life  is  enlarged.  This  work  is  done  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  and  like  all  the  work  of 
God  it  is  carried  on  by  processes  which 
require  time  for  their  completion.  If  a 
man  is  willing  to  speak  out  in  love  the 
truth  which  has  become  certain  to  his  soul, 
and  has  sense  enough  to  abstain  from 
scornful  words  of  by-gone  teachers  and 
traditional  teachings,  he  can  ordinarily 
preach  what  his  people  need  without  the 
slightest  danger  of  precipitating  an  ecclesi- 
astical earthquake. 

Patience  then  is  the  queen  of  the  min- 
isterial   virtues.      Like    the    farmer    the 


Impatience.  65 

preacher  is  engaged  in  a  work  which  de- 
mands the  exercise  of  all  the  powers  of 
long-suffering  diligence  and  protracted 
wakefulness  and  waiting.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  our  Lord  saw  in  the  slow  and  stately 
operations  of  Nature  a  revelation  of  the 
processes  of  spiritual  growth,  and  to 
Nature  we  must  go  for  rare  disclosures  of 
the  secrets  of  successful  spiritual  labor. 
To  his  disciples  then  and  now  and  always 
the  Son  of  God  makes  this  declaration, 

"In  your  patience  ye  shall  win  your  souls." 


66    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 


IX. 

Clerical  Hamlets. 

A  WIDE  reader  of  ministerial  biography 
has  declared  that  "a  gently  complaining 
and  fatigued  spirit  is  that  in  which  evan- 
gelical divines  are  very  apt  to  pass  their 
days."  If  this  be  true  we  have  found  an 
explanation  of  many  a  pulpit  failure.  For 
no  man  can  be  masterful  as  teacher  or 
leader  whose  spirit  is  either  plaintful  or 
fatigued.  The  message  of  the  preacher 
is  glad  tidings  of  great  joy,  and  unless 
there  is  joy  in  the  herald  his  message  will 
have  a  broken  wing.  Whatever  else  a 
minister  may  be  he  must  be  pre-eminently 
a  man  of  good  cheer.  His  presence  must 
be  a  constant  exhortation,  Rejoice,  again  I 
say  unto  you  Rejoice ! 


Clerical  Hamlets.  6/ 

But  who  has  not  known  ministers  whose 
voice  and  face  seemed  to  be  always  saying, 
Let  us  cry !  Such  a  man  goes  about 
shutting  up  all  the  Eastern  windows  which 
look  toward  the  sun.  In  his  presence  the 
singing  swallows  become  silent  and  the 
brooks  of  morning  dry  up.  Those  who 
sit  in  darkness  and  in  the  shadow  of  death 
find  no  deliverance  in  him  for  he  is  in 
darkness  himself.  He  abides  not  in  the 
light  because  there  is  no  light  in  him. 

It  is  surprising  how  many  ministers  live 
in  a  petulant  and  peevish  mood.  Even 
men  who  are  able  to  carry  a  serene  ex- 
terior are  often  found  on  closer  contact 
to  be  morbid  and  glum.  Life  is  going 
hard  with  them.  Things  are  all  wrong. 
They  are  not  appreciated.  Parish  interests 
are  in  a  snarl.  The  world  has  not  treated 
them  fairly.  And  so  in  private  they  bleed 
and  pout  and  whine. 

The  age  gives  such  men  no  end  of 
trouble.      It  is  a  materialistic,  sordid  age 


6S    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

and  they  wear  themselves  out  shrieking, 
"The  time  is  out  of  joint!"  The  world 
has  grown  indifferent  to  spiritual  voices, 
and  as  it  rushes  to  destruction  the  poor 
preacher  looks  helplessly  on  and  blubbers. 
But  why  these  tears  ?  Ours  is  not  the 
only  materialistic  age.  When  was  there 
an  age  since  the  great  flood  that  was  not 
more  materialistic  than  this  one  .'*  The 
apostles  grappled  with  a  generation  more 
sodden  far  and  brutish  than  the  one  now 
on  the  stage,  and  not  a  whimper  escaped 
from  one  of  them.  Preachers  are  not 
ordained  to  preach  to  golden  ages  but  to 
ages  of  stone  and  bronze  and  iron.  A 
minister  sometimes  gets  the  impression 
that  his  town  is  wicked  above  all  others. 
Its  inertia  and  stupidity  first  sadden  him 
and  then  make  him  mad.  He  rails  at  it. 
He  cuffs  it  as  though  it  were  a  wayward 
child.  In  a  town  of  greater  intelligence 
his  work,  he  thinks,  would  receive  a 
more   generous   recognition ! 


Clerical  Hamlets.  69 

But  is  not  such  complaining  unmanly  ? 
All  places  are  wicked.  Men  who  live  in 
great  cities  are  ready  to  confess  that  the 
devil  has  made  the  city  his  headquarters  ; 
but  men  who  live  in  little  country  towns 
declare  that  towns  are  even  worse  than 
the  cities.  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  lurk 
under  the  thin  crust  of  civilization  every- 
where. A  man  engaged  in  religious  work 
soon  discovers  that  the  world  is  possessed 
of  seven  devils.  But  this  discovery  should 
not  dash  or  damp  him.  If  humanity  wbre 
clothed  and  in  its  right  mind  the  occupa- 
tion of  the  preacher  would  be  gone.  It  is 
because  men  have  lost  their  way  that  a 
guide  is  needed.  It  is  because  men  are 
sick  unto  death  that  God  has  raised  up 
physicians.  They  that  are  whole  have  no 
need  of  a  physician.  The  more  godless  a 
community  the  greater  need  of  a  man  of 
God  to  work  in  it.  Saul  of  Tarsus  was 
not  daunted  by  the  rottenness  of  the  cities 
of  Asia.     Their  squalor  and  wretchedness 


70    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

made  him  all  the  more  desirous  of  preach- 
ing the  gospel  in  the  world's  darkest  center, 
the  godless  metropolis  of  the  Roman 
empire.  Paul  saying,  "  I  must  also  see 
Rome  : "  our  faint-hearted  modern  brother 
wailing,  "  This  place  is  wicked,  I  must  get 
out  of  it  "  —  O  what  a  fall  is  there,  my 
countrymen ! 

Sometimes  it  is  not  the  world  in  general 
but  a  man's  own  parish  which  causes  him 
to  wince  and  quail.  A  newspaper  gets  on 
his  track  and  misreports  him.  His  ser- 
mons are  garbled  and  his  actions  are  mis- 
judged, and  the  mangled  son  of  thunder 
goes  about  bleeding  at  every  pore.  A 
man  too  thin-skinned  to  stand  newspaper 
criticism  is  not  a  fit  man  to  lead  the  Lord's 
army.  A  newspaper  is  frequently  the 
most  unprincipled  and  merciless  of  antag- 
onists, and  when  controlled  by  men  who 
are  hostile  to  the  church  it  may  make  the 
clergyman  the  target  for  continuous  abuse  ; 
but  a  minister  who  is  wise  will  never  enter 


Clerical  Hamlets.  71 

into  a  controversy  with  a  newspaper.  To 
be  beaten  with  a  few  stinging  sentences  is 
not  so  painful  as  to  be  beaten  with  a 
Roman  scourge,  and  it  was  after  being 
whipped  with  a  Roman  scourge  that  Paul 
and  Silas  sang.  If  a  minister  cannot  sing 
after  being  trounced  by  the  most  merciless 
reporter  who  ever  poured  bad  blood  into 
ink,  he  should  get  out  of  the  pulpit  and 
seek  a  position  where  thin  skin  is  not  a 
hindrance  to  duty. 

Or  the  anonymous  coward  instead  of 
attacking  him  in  a  newspaper  may  stab 
him  through  the  mail.  Two  or  three  an- 
onymous letters  will  cause  some  men  to 
swell  up  as  though  they  had  been  bitten 
by  tarantulas.  For  days  afterward  they 
smart  and  moan,  and  try  they  never  so  hard 
to  hold  it  back,  more  or  less  of  their  hurt 
feeling  trickles  into  their  next  Sunday's 
discourses. 

The  criticism  may  not  be  written  but 
spoken.     It  may  float  through  the  atmos- 


72    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

phere  in  the  shape  of  poisonous  rumors. 
A  set  of  Hars  by  attending  strictly  to  busi- 
ness can  fill  an  entire  community  with 
aerial  hints  of  their  personality,  and  a 
minister  who  is  disposed  to  take  notice  of 
every  word  spoken  against  him  will  be 
kept  in  a  state  of  chronic  resentment. 

Men  may  resist  him  not  only  by  their 
words  but  by  their  actions.  This  opposi- 
tion may  come  from  members  of  his  own 
church.  All  Christians  are  called  to  be 
saints,  but  in  many  of  them  the  saintship 
has  not  passed  beyond  the  germinal  stages 
Even  church  officials  may  surpass  the 
heathen  Chinese  for  ways  that  are  dark 
and  tricks  that  are  vain,  and  the  luckless 
preacher  repeatedly  outwitted  and  im- 
posed upon  by  men  whose  moral  develop- 
ment is  as  yet  embryonic  may  have  such  a 
budget  of  wrongs  to  talk  about  that  these 
wrongs  are  more  frequently  on  his  lips  than 
the  truths  in  which  he  is  supposed  to  live. 
Nothing  is  more  nauseating  than  a  grown 


Clerical  Hamlets.  73 

baby  forever  dwelling  on  his  wrongs.  A 
minister  who  constantly  appeals  for  sym- 
pathy is  a  minister  whom  everybody  wants 
to  get  away  from.  One  instinctively 
shrinks  from  the  man  who  as  soon  as  he 
gets  you  alone  proceeds  to  take  off  the 
poultices  with  which  he  has  bandaged  his 
soul  that  you  may  see  how  badly  he  has 
been  hurt. 

How  can  a  man  who  snivels  preach  the 
gospel }  Clouds  and  darkness  are  round 
most  men  and  it  is  the  preacher's  business 
to  let  the  sunlight  in.  A  congregation' 
needs  nothing  so  much  as  sun.  Melan- 
choly is  a  disease  both  contagious  and 
deadly.  One  man  may  poison  with  the 
virus  of  his  despondency  an  entire  com- 
munity. 

Therefore,  O  man  of  God,  quit  your 
pining.  Stop  your  moping.  Put  an  end 
to  your  brooding.  Get  out  of  the  slough 
of  despond.  Cut  down  your  cypresses 
and  willows.      Burn  up  your  sermons  with 


74    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

sobs  in  them.  "  Be  converted."  "  Be  not 
afraid."  "  Be  of  good  cheer."  <*  Rejoice 
and  be  exceeding  glad."  This  is  the  lan- 
guage of  Christ  and  his  apostles.  Yours 
it  is  to 

"Clothe  the  waste  with  dreams  of  gain, 
And  on  midnight's  sky  of  rain 
Paint  the  golden  mono  .v." 


Despondency.  75 


X. 

Despondency, 

The  prime  causes  of  despondency  are 
three,  nerve  exhaustion,  protracted  delays, 
unfounded  expectations.  A  minister  is 
subjected  to  an  incessant  nervous  strain. 
As  executive  officer  he  is  harassed  by  the 
details  and  friction  of  church  administration. 
As  pastor  he  is  in  constant  contact  with 
the  sorrowing  and  the  sick.  The  poor 
also  are  always  with  him.  He  knows  as 
few  men  do  how  the  other  half  lives. 
Numberless  needy  men  and  women  slip  up 
to  him  in  the  crowd  and  by  their  touch 
draw  virtue  from  him.  It  is  often  with  a 
dizzy  head  and  a  sick  heart  that  he  goes 
into  the  pulpit  Sunday  morning  to  make  a 
still    heavier   draft   upon   his  vital  forces. 


']6    Quiet  Hints  to   Growing  Preachers. 

The  world  does  not  know  how  great  a  tax 
upon  a  sensitive  man  an  earnest  sermon  is. 
No  man  can  vitalize  other  men  without 
devitalizing  himself.  Sermons  that  heal 
and  lift  have  in  them  the  red  blood  of  the 
preacher's  heart.  He  may  save  others, 
himself  he  cannot  save.  It  is  cruel,  says 
London's  greatest  preacher,  to  ask  a  man 
to  preach  twice  in  one  day.  Only  men  to 
whom  preaching  is  the  shedding  of  blood 
can  understand  so  bold  a  saying.  It  was 
physical  exhaustion  which  cast  Elijah  under 
a  juniper  tree  and  drew  from  his  heroic 
lips  the  unmanly  cry  *'  It  is  enough ! " 
The  tree  has  a  crowd  still  under  it  suffer- 
ing from  a  like  exhaustion. 

But  a  man  who  lives  under  a  juniper 
tree  cannot  preach  Gospel  sermons.  The 
tree  will  affect  the  quality  of  his  voice. 
A  juniper  tree  voice  is  an  abomination  to 
God  and  man.  It  will  also  control  his 
choice  of  subjects.  He  will  select  themes 
which   give  large  room  for  lamentations. 


Despondency.  77 

Even  jubilant  texts  he  will  drag  through 
the  mire  of  his  gloom.  No  matter  what 
tune  he  attempts  he  will  play  it  with  the 
tremolo  stop.  Whatever  sermonic  gold  is 
cast  into  the  fire  will  come  out  a  calf  and 
a  sick  calf  at  that.  A  disheartened  man 
takes  the  heart  out  of  everybody  else. 
Unless  he  is  resisted  he  will  drag  the 
whole  parish  under  his  juniper  tree. 

Such  a  man  needs  food  for  the  nerves. 
Let  him  get  out  into  God's  out-of-doors. 
Men  like  trees  live  largely  on  air.  Red 
corpuscles  in  the  blood  save  one  from 
the  malady  of  seeing  all  things  blue.  A 
preacher  must  get  away  from  his  work 
one  day  in  seven.  Who  is  he  that  he 
thinks  he  can  drive  a  coach  and  four 
through  the  Decalogue  without  paying 
the  penalty }  He  should  rest  one  month 
out  of  every  twelve.  If  his  church  will 
not  grant  him  this  he  should  take  it.  No 
man  can  wear  in  the  pulpit  for  forty  years 
without  periodic  seasons  for  recuperation 


78    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

and  repairs.  There  are  men  now  fishing 
who  catch  no  fish  because  they  have  never 
taken  time  to  mend  their  nets.  If  a  man 
makes  a  practice  of  preaching  through  his 
vacations,  verily  he  has  his  explanations  — 
and  his  reward. 

Sometimes  the  despondency  is  the  re- 
sult of  accumulated  disappointments.  The 
very  finest  spirits  are  often  broken  by  the 
experiences  through  which  a  minister  is 
called  upon  to  pass.  Every  true  work- 
man wants  to  see  results  of  his  labor,  but 
in  the  spiritual  world  tangible  results  are 
not  always  immediately  forthcoming.  If 
a  man  can  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul 
he  will  be  satisfied,  but  it  is  hard  to  work 
by  faith.  The  preacher  does  his  best  but 
the  world  does  not  budge.  He  preaches 
truth  but  hearts  are  locked  and  barred 
against  it.  Some  men  grow  worse  under 
his  preaching,  and  even  from  the  best  of 
soil  there  come  forth  but  puny  and  tardy 
harvests.     For  awhile  he  bears  up  under 


Despondency,  79 

these  cutting  disappointments  but  at  last 
his  spirit  flags  and  he  falls  headlong  into 
a  hopelessly  dejected  mood.  By  his  voice 
and  temper  the  world  can  see  that  he  is 
a  defeated  and  disheartened  man. 

Unless  he  gets  out  of  this  pit  he  is  lost. 
Let  him  go  to  the  New  Testament  and 
master  the  seed-law  of  the  kingdom.  Let 
him  study  the  parable  of  the  soils,  a  para- 
ble with  worlds  of  consolation  for  preach- 
ers who  are  discouraged.  Let  him  refresh 
himself  with  the  thought  that  even  when 
the  seed  is  perfect  and  the  sowing  is  fault- 
less the  harvest  is  often  scanty  or  choked, 
and  that  from  at  least  one  variety  of  soil 
there  can  be  no  harvest  at  all.  Let  him 
ponder  the  parable  of  the  harvest  coming 
gradually,  and  rejoice  in  the  assurance  that 
the  full  corn  is  coming  though  his  wistful 
eyes  may  see  no  more  than  tiny  blades. 
The  processes  of  spiritual  development  are 
slow  but  they  are  as  orderly  and  certain  as 
are  the  processes  by  which  the  universe 


So    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

has  come  to  its  present  estate.  It  is  a 
great  thing  to  believe  with  one's  heart 
and  mind  and  strength  that  every  bit  of 
work  done  for  God  with  patient  hands  and 
faithful  heart  is  certain  to  bring  forth 
some  day,  somehow,  abundant  harvests  to 
his  glory.  No  minister  of  Christ  should 
rest  content  until  this  faith  is  his. 

Many  a  man  has  been  cast  down  by 
unreasonable  expectations,  and  these  ex- 
pectations in  numerous  cases  have  been 
aroused  by  mistaken  reading  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. It  is  frequently  asserted  that  if 
men  will  only  preach  the  Gospel  the 
crowds  will  flock  to  hear  them,  and  as 
proof  of  this  a  sentence  of  St.  Mark  is 
quoted,  "the  common  people  heard  him 
gladly."  People  who  quote  the  Scripture 
ought  to  find  out  first  what  the  Scripture 
means.  On  the  day  on  which  Jesus  upset 
the  Pharisees  and  discomfited  the  Scribes 
the  common  people,  so  Mark  says,  listened 
with  delight.     Of   course  they  did.     The 


Desp07idency.  8 1 

Scribes  and  Pharisees  were  their  heredi- 
tary foes.  To  see  such  snobs  and  ped- 
ants rolled  headlong  in  the  dust  was  to 
the  common  people  an  experience  quite 
delicious.  The  words  of  Jesus  were 
applauded  with  hilarity  and  glee.  But 
outside  of  a  few  forlorn  and  forsaken  sin- 
ners to  whom  Jesus'  kindness  was  over- 
mastering, what  classes  of  people  listened 
to  him  gladly  when  he  was  pressing  upon 
the  conscience  high  conceptions  or  ardu- 
ous duties }  For  a  little  while  the  com- 
mon people  followed  him  because  they 
took  him  for  a  Schlatter  and  a  Barabbas 
rolled  into  one.  As  soon  as  they  discov- 
ered he  was  not  a  Barabbas  they  had 
no  further  use  for  him,  and  cried,  ''  Not 
this  man  but  Barabbas  ! "  The  next  time 
some  one  gravely  quotes,  "the  common 
people  heard  him  gladly,"  ask  him,  when  } 
Certainly  not  in  Nazareth  for  they  tried 
to  kill  him  there.  Not  in  Capernaum  for 
they  deserted  him  there.     Not  in  Jerusa- 


82    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

lem  for  they  cried,  **  Crucify  him  !  Cru< 
cify  him ! "  Not  on  the  cross  for  they 
wagged  their  heads  and  derided  him.  It 
is  a  monstrous  perversion  of  the  facts  to 
say  that  the  common  people  of  Palestine 
accepted  gladly  the  teaching  of  the  Son 
of  God.  If  they  did  why  did  he  utter 
woes  upon  Bethsaida  and  Capernaum  and 
Chorazin,  cities  filled  with  common  people, 
and  why  did  he  sob,  *'0  Jerusalem,  how 
oft  would  I,  but  you  would  not ! "  And 
how  did  it  happen  that  after  three  years 
of  as  hard  work  as  a  perfect  man  with 
perfect  methods  could  do,  assisted  by 
twelve  apostles  and  seventy  heralds,  he 
left  at  death  a  little  company  of  only  six 
hundred  converts  drawn  from  the  millions 
of  the  common  people  in  the  midst  of 
whom  he  had  done  his  mighty  works  } 
The  common  people  rejected  both  Jesus 
and  his  teachings  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago  and  their  temper  has  never  changed. 
Let  no  man  then  delude  himself  with 


Despondency.  83 

the  foolish  expectation  that  the  world  is 
going  to  rush  to  hear  him  preach.  The 
world  has  found  Jesus  out.  It  knows  he 
is  not  a  Barabbas  nor  a  Schlatter,  but  a 
teacher  of  high  ideals  and  uncomfortable 
commandments,  whose  disciples  must  not 
expect  to  be  above  their  master  and  whose 
servants  must  be  as  their  Lord.  The 
New  Testament  makes  it  clear  as  light 
that  we  preachers  shall  have  tribulation. 
If  we  hve  godly  in  Christ  Jesus  we  must 
suffer  persecution.  We  are  sent  forth  as 
sheep  in  the  midst  of  wolves.  Unless  we 
take  up  our  cross  daily  we  cannot  be  his 
disciples.  If  we  are  wise,  we  will  accept 
this  as  our  lot,  not  despondingly  but  with 
exceeding  joy,  desiring  always  that  we  may 
know  Christ  and  his  resurrection,  and  the 
fellowship  of  his  suffering,  being  made 
conformable  unto  his  death,  if  by  any 
means  we  may  attain  unto  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  dead. 


S4    Qiiiet  Hints  to  Gro'wi?tg  Preachers. 


XI. 

The  Value  of  a  Target, 

But  let  no  man  rail  at  the  soil  till  he  has 
examined  his  soul.  Obstacles  without  are 
as  nothing  compared  with  hindrances  with- 
in. Men  sometimes  disparage  their  parish 
when  they  ought  to  he  cudgeling  them- 
selves. "  I  have  a  hard  field  !  "  The  good 
man  sighs  and  on  his  sigh  as  on  a  rug 
lies  down.  The  self  complacency  of  some 
men  is  colossal. 

It  is  easier  to  lose  one's  way  in  the  min- 
istry than  in  any  other  calling.  Many  a 
man  gropes  hither  and  thither  like  a  trav- 
eler lost  in  a  fog.  The  vastness  of  the 
world  in  which  the  minister  moves  renders 
it  easy  for  him  to  be  vague.  Theology 
itself  is  a  boundless  science,  but  it  is  only 


TJu    Value  of  a   Target,  85 

one  of  many  which  closely  touch  the 
preacher's  work.  In  the  library  as  on  the 
ocean  one  is  lost  without  a  compass. 

The  details  of  administrative  labor  are 
multitudinous,  and  a  man  unless  clear 
headed  will  be  swamped.  A  minister's 
work  is  of  a  routine  character,  and  routine 
always  tends  to  reduce  the  vitality  of  a  pro- 
pelling purpose.  When  the  community 
expects  a  man  to  pray  at  stated  seasons 
every  week  whether  he  is  in  the  spirit  of 
prayer  or  not,  and  at  fixed  intervals  to  give 
a  discourse  whether  or  not  he  has  received 
a  message,  and  to  keep  up  this  clock-like 
regularity  straight  onward  through  the 
years  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  the  ex- 
ercises which  began  as  means  to  lofty  ends 
may  at  last  become  ends  in  themselves. 
The  prayer  which  once  was  winged  with  a 
definite  aim  may  become  a  spoke  in  a  re- 
volving wheel  from  whose  turning  neither 
the  preacher  nor  any  one  else  expects  re- 
sults.     The  sermon  which  once    thrilled 


86    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

with  a  burning  purpose  may  dwindle  into 
a  display  of  verbal  handiwork  or  a  string 
of  meaningless  commonplaces  with  which 
to  tie  up  a  service.  Even  men  who  work 
prodigiously  on  their  sermons  may  forget 
the  end  for  which  sermons  ought  to  be  pre- 
pared. To  no  one  is  sermon  production 
easy,  to  many  it  is  exhausting  toil ;  and  so 
intent  sometimes  does  the  worker  become 
in  the  unfolding  of  his  idea  as  to  lose  sight 
entirely  of  the  work  which  the  idea  is 
meant  to  accomplish.  The  arrow  is  care- 
fully and  ingeniously  fashioned  and  then 
shot  at  random  into  the  air.  The  bullet  is 
molded  at  great  pains  but  no  target  is 
visible  to  the  marksman's  eye.  Preaching 
which  is  if  rightly  done  the  most  exacting 
and  purposeful  of  all  forms  of  labor  may 
easily  become  the  most  desultory  and  pur- 
poseless of  all. 

This  lack  of  aim  works  havoc  in  a  par- 
ish. The  man  without  a  goal  seldom  gets 
anywhere.      The    leader  who   knows   not 


TJie    Value  of  a   Target.  8/ 

whither  he  wishes  to  go,  will  land  his  fol- 
lowers in  the  ditch.  A  man  is  effective  in 
the  ministry,  other  things  being  equal,  in 
proportion  to  the  clearness  of  his  purpose 
and  the  definiteness  of  his  aim.  This  lack 
of  intention  reveals  itself  in  the  sermon. 
An  aimless  sermon  breaks  down  the  inter- 
est of  a  congregation  and  sends  it  home 
disheartened  and  confused.  Men  say  to 
one  another,  "  I  do  not  know  what  he  was 
driving  at," — one  of  the  saddest  wails 
which  ever  escapes  the  lips  of  church  at- 
tendants. Unless  a  man  can  make  the 
purpose  of  his  sermon  stand  out  broad  as  a 
barn  door  he  ought  to  go  into  some  work 
for  which  the  Lord  has  fitted  him.  The 
very  mission  of  the  pulpit  is  to  fire  men's 
hearts  and  set  them  moving  out  to  battle, 
but  if  the  trumpet  gives  an  uncertain  sound 
who  will  prepare  himself  for  the  conflict  } 
Laymen  frequently  stand  nonplussed  at  the 
close  of  a  sermon  not  knowing  what  they 
ought  to  think  or  what  they  ought  to  do. 


88    Quiet  Hints  to  Grozuifig  P^'eacJiers. 

This  target-blindness  also  discloses  itself 
in  parish  administration.  If  a  minister 
has  nothing  definite  in  his  mind  he  is  likely 
to  organize  a  new  society.  There  may  be 
no  need  of  it  in  the  parish,  and  its  creation 
may  absorb  vitality  needed  for  the  devel- 
opment of  organizations  already  in  exist- 
ence, but  to  the  clouded  vision  of  a  man 
without  an  aim  a  new  society  is  always  a 
thing  to  be  desired,  partly  because  it  gives 
him  opportunity  to  appear  to  be  doing 
something  when  he  is  doing  nothing  and 
partly  because  a  community  is  always  ready 
to  mistake  the  multiplication  of  wheels  for 
an  increased  speed  in  the  progress  of  the 
Lord's  chariot.  Probably  half  the  organi- 
zations now  in  existence  would  never  have 
cumbered  the  ground  had  it  not  been  for 
the  idle  and  fussy  brains  of  men  and 
women  who  care  more  for  the  manipulation 
of  machinery  than  for  the  accomplishment 
of  spiritual  ends.  Those  whose  heart  is 
set  on  the  attainment  of   definite  results 


The    Value  of  a   Target.  89 

do  not  want  to  be  weighted  with  unneces- 
sary paraphernalia  and  desire  as  Uttle  ma- 
chinery as  possible. 

A  clear  cut  aim  is  the  preacher's  life- 
preserver.  A  preacher  without  a  purpose 
is  worse  off  than  a  man  without  a  country. 
The  frequent  pondering  of  a  purpose 
braces  the  heart  and  energizes  the  will. 
No  question  should  be  oftener  on  the 
preacher's  lips  than,  "  To  what  purpose  is 
this } ' '  That  is  the  question  with  which 
he  should  begin  every  sermon.  On  the 
first  page  he  should  write  in  clean,  terse 
Saxon  the  precise  work  which  this  par- 
ticular sermon  is  intended  to  do  ;  and  on 
the  last  page  he  should  write  his  honest 
answer  to  the  question  :  Is  this  sermon  so 
constructed  as  to  be  likely  to  accompHsh 
the  result  for  which  it  has  been  written  .?  " 
The  first  and  last  pages  of  the  sermon 
need  not  be  given  to  the  people,  although 
if  a  minister  has  not  the  gift  of  clothing 
thought  in  garments  of  light  let  him  help 


go    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

his  people  by  telling  them  frankly  at  the 
beginning  just  what  his  sermon  aims  to 
do,  and  at  the  close  let  him  condense  into 
one  compact  and  memorable  sentence  the 
gist  of  all  he  has  tried  to  say. 

To  what  purpose  ?  That  is  an  improv- 
ing question  for  men  who  lead  in  prayer. 
It  is  a  knife  which  prunes  away  super- 
fluous petitions.  There  would  probably 
be  fewer  skeptics  in  regard  to  prayer  if 
ministers  had  not  prayed  so  abominably. 
The  man  who  goes  into  the  pulpit  to 
dawdle  aimlessly  through  a  long  series  of 
meaningless  and  unrelated  petitions  is 
taking  God's  name  in  vain. 

If  a  clergyman  has  lost  his  purpose  let 
him  seek  for  it  as  for  rubies  and  fine  gold. 
When  he  finds  it  let  him  use  it  day  by 
day.  Let  no  meeting  be  held,  no  society 
organized,  no  new  enterprise  launched, 
no  campaign  entered  upon,  no  sermon 
preached,  no  prayer  offered  without  a 
sharp  and  serious  pondering  of  the  ques- 


The    Value  of  a   Target.  91 

tion,  For  what  purpose  is  this  ?  There 
will  be  a  new  consternation  in  the  ranks 
of  the  army  of  the  Prince  of  Darkness 
when  a  larger  number  of  the  captains  of 
the  Lord's  host  come  to  realize  more  fully 
the  necessity  of  keeping  one's  eyes  on  the 
target. 


92    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 


XII. 

Building  the  Tower, 

A  CHURCH  likes  to  feel  itself  in  the  grip 
of  a  man  who  knows  not  only  where  he 
is  going  but  also  by  what  stages  the  goal 
can  in  all  probability  best  be  reached. 
Wretched  indeed  is  the  predicament  of  a 
congregation  whose  leader  is  a  man  with  a 
higglety-pigglety  mind  and  with  no  ascer- 
tainable ambition  but  to  keep  the  sermonic 
mill  grinding   through  the  year. 

A  minister  should  live  and  move  and 
have  his  being  within  the  four  corners 
of  a  far-reaching,  constructive  purpose. 
All  his  work  should  be  done  with  an 
eye  single  to  some  one  glorious  end. 
Marvelous  is  the  transfiguring  powder  of 
a  purpose   held  firmly  in    the   preacher's 


Building  the   lower.  93 

mind.  Language  cuts  with  a  keener  edge. 
Ideas  burn  with  a  hotter  flame.  Sermons, 
no  longer  isolated  and  unrelated,  become 
confederates  in  a  holy  cause,  joining  hand 
in  hand  to  pull  down  the  strongholds  of 
evil  and  lift  men  to  the  upper  heights. 
Some  men's  sermons  are  only  bush- 
whackers fighting  a  desultory  and  bewil- 
dered skirmish,  other  men's  sermons  sweep 
through  the  year  like  a  well-disciplined 
battalion  going  forth  to  fight  the  battles 
of  the  Lord.  To  one  preacher  sermons  are 
variegated  beads  loosely  strung  together  on 
Sabbatic  thread,  to  another  they  are  con- 
stituent parts  of  an  organic  and  growing 
whole.  It  is  only  when  the  sermons  be- 
come connected  chapters  of  a  continuous 
story,  the  aim  of  which  is  clearly  in  the 
preacher's  mind,  that  the  heart-life  of  a 
congregation  is  symmetrically  developed 
and  the  parish  built  up  foursquare  in 
righteousness. 

Ministers  of  Christ  are  church  builders 


94    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

and  the  architectonic  gift  is  one  of  the 
most  valuable  of  the  gifts  bestowed  by  the 
Eternal  Spirit.  A  preacher  should  have 
the  instinct  and  skill  of  the  builder.  What 
materials  and  in  what  quantity  and  in  what 
proportions  and  at  what  times  and  in  what 
places,  —  these  are  questions  as  important 
in  spiritual  church  building  as  in  the  erec- 
tion of  structures  of  brick  and  steel ;  but 
they  are  questions  which  in  many  a  parish 
are  slighted  or  ignored.  The  Master  said 
that  any  man  about  to  build  a  tower  ought 
first  to  calculate  the  cost.  This  prelimi- 
nary investigation  and  estimate  is  an  indis- 
pensable part  of  the  work.  The  preacher 
is  a  tower  builder  but  not  every  preacher 
seems  to  be  aware  of  the  fact.  The  most 
patent  fact  to  some  men  is  that  two  new 
sermons  must  be  gotten  ready  every  week. 
Like  avenging  furies  these  sermons  drive 
their  victims  through  the  days  and  nights, 
and  whether  they  will  carry  on  and  com- 
plete the  work  which   preceding  sermons 


Building  the  Tower.  95 

have  begun  or  prepare  the  way  Hke  John 
the  Baptists  for  other  sermons  not  yet 
arrived  is  a  question  for  whose  consider- 
ation the  hurried  hours  allow  no  oppor- 
tunity. A  man  thus  harassed  may  become 
so  absorbed  in  the  work  of  preparing  bricks 
and  mortar  for  his  tower  that  no  time  is 
left  for  the  consideration  of  its  architec- 
tural proportions  or  for  a  thought  concern- 
ing the  eternal  laws  in  obedience  to  which 
all  lasting  structures  must  be  built. 

This  lack  of  forethought  and  design  is 
painfully  apparent  in  many  men  whose 
gifts  are  conspicuous  and  whose  success 
might  be  increased  a  hundred  fold  if  they 
should  form  the  habit  of  building  the 
months  and  years  into  a  plan.  Such  a 
habit  systematizes  the  study  and  thought 
of  the  preacher  and  gives  him  a  poise  and 
power  not  otherwise  obtainable. 

It  is  the  misfortune  of  many  men  that 
they  fear  to  take  hold  of  large  things. 
Their  texts  and  themes  and  outlooks  and 


g6    Q2iiet  Hints  to  Groiving  Preachers. 

projects  and  problems  are  too  small  to 
develop  themselves  or  inspire  a  congrega- 
tion. A  man  may  tempt  himself  by  setting 
before  him  a  block  of  five  or  ten  years  and 
saying  to  himself,  "  By  the  help  of  God  I 
will  carve  out  of  this  huge  block  of  time 
the  loveliest  and  greatest  piece  of  work  of 
which  my  powers  are  capable."  By  fixing 
his  eyes  not  on  next  Sunday  but  on  a  Sun- 
day ten  years  away,  he  will  walk  with  a 
new  tread  under  a  new  heaven  and  across 
a  new  earth. 

/  Lift  up  your  eyes  then.  Brethren,  and 
take  in  the  years  which  are  to  be.  Every 
preacher  ought  to  see  clearly  at  least  one 
year  ahead  of  him.  If  he  can  see  five,  it  is 
still  better.  If  he  blinds  his  eyes  in  the 
dust  of  the  immediate  present  and  allows 
life  to  become  a  haggard  scramble  for  two 
new  sermons  for  the  coming  Sabbath,  he 
not  only  stunts  his  own  intellectual  de. 
velopment  but  dwarfs  the  spiritual  stature 
of  his  church. 


Btiilding  the   Tower.  97 

Every  preacher  should  have  a  church 
year.  This  is  well-nigh  indispensable.  If 
he  does  not  lilce  the  one  laid  down  in  the 
books  of  the  churches  which  retain  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  fathers  let  him  make  one  of 
his  own.  If  he  does  not  map  out  his 
scripture  lessons  in  advance  he  will  find 
himself  reading  the  same  passages  again 
and  again,  passing  over  large  sections  of 
Holy  Writ  which  his  people  need.  It  is 
only  by  painstaking  planning  that  a  minis- 
ter can  secure  variety  in  his  pulpit  themes. 
Unless  he  takes  time  to  recall  his  sermons 
of  last  year  and  to  organize  into  a  schedule 
the  sermons  of  the  coming  year  he  will 
almost  invariably  cultivate  some  narrow 
field  to  which  his  own  tastes  incline  him, 
ignoring  wide  domains  of  revelation  which 
are  never  neglected  save  at  the  sacrifice  of 
health  and  growth.  He  will  fail  also  to 
present  truth  in  its  true  proportions. 
There  are  certain  facts  of  the  Christian 
revelation  which  ought  to  be  presented  to 


98    Quiet  Hmts  to  Growing  Preachers. 

a  congregation  every  year.  There  are  a 
few  principles  of  conduct  so  central  to 
Christianity  and  so  vital  to  spiritual  health 
that  no  year  should  pass  without  the 
preacher  bringing  to  their  unfoldment  the 
united  strength  of  all  his  powers.  With- 
out prearrangement  these  vital  matters 
will  be  slurred  or  crowded  completely  out. 

Not  only  are  the  phases  of  truth  mani- 
fold but  the  methods  of  presentation  are 
almost  numberless.  These  should  be  em- 
ployed in  such  a  way  as  to  give  variety 
and  refreshment.  Some  preachers  are 
intolerably  monotonous  because  they  in- 
variably appeal  to  the  same  faculties  and 
deal  always  with  the  same  type  of  doc- 
trine. If  they  would  sit  down  at  the 
beginning  of  each  year  and  make  a  careful 
diagnosis  of  the  spiritual  condition  of  their 
people,  noting  the  dispositions  to  be 
curbed,  the  tempers  to  be  nourished,  the 
errors  to  be  choked,  the  truths  to  be 
enthroned,  the   vices   to   be   starved,   the 


Building  the   Tozver.  99 

virtues  to  be  cultivated,  and  then  map  out 
the  year  as  a  general  outlines  a  campaign, 
appointing  a  definite  number  of  sermons 
for  the  accomplishment  of  each  particular 
design,  and  arranging  the  sermons  in  a 
sequence  which  will  secure  both  continuity 
and  momentum,  and  at  the  same  time 
allow  relaxation  both  to  the  preacher  and 
the  hearer  by  calling  into  exercise  new 
combinations  of  faculties  by  the  presenta- 
tion of  diverse  but  related  realms  of  truth, 
he  will  not  only  find  himself  doing  his 
work  with  increased  facility  and  joy  but 
he  will  see  the  spiritual  life  of  his  parish 
passing  under  his  hand  into  those  forms 
of  beauty  and  power  which  he  beheld 
first  in  vision  and  which  by  the  co-opera- 
tion of  God  are  now  embodied  in  the  life 
of  humanity  to  the  glory  of  his  blessed 
name. 


lOO    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 


XIII. 

Selfishness, 

The  crowning  glory  of  the  character 
of  Jesus  was  his  unselfishness.  "For 
their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself  "  —  in  this 
golden  sentence  of  his  high-priestly  prayer 
is  expressed  the  disposition  which  shaped 
his  conduct  from  Nazareth  to  Golgotha. 
If  it  is  essential  that  the  servant  be  as 
his  master  and  the  disciple  as  his  Lord, 
then  to  every  minister  of  Christ  there 
comes  the  call  to  sanctify  himself  for  the 
sake  of  his  congregation.  It  is  for  his 
people  that  the  true  preacher  lives  and 
labors.  To  serve  them  is  his  cardinal 
ambition,  his  consummate  joy.  By  serv- 
ing them  he  serves  God.  God  and  the  peo- 
ple cannot  be  separated  in  the  preacher's 


Selfishness.  lOi 

work.  Thick-witted  men  occasionally  get 
the  notion  that  they  can  glorify  God  by 
preaching  theology  and  at  the  same  time 
scorn  their  congregation.  By  proclaiming 
in  the  pulpit  unpalatable  ideas  in  offen- 
sive ways  they  pride  themselves  on  serv- 
ing God  no  matter  how  they  hurt  God's 
people.  Indeed  a  man  may  become  so 
wrong-headed  as  to  think  that  the  far- 
ther he  gets  from  his  people  the  nearer 
he  is  to  the  Almighty.  But  if  a  man 
loves  not  his  congregation  whom  he  has 
seen  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  has 
not  seen }  If  a  minister  says  he  loves 
God,  and  in  his  heart  slights  or  despises 
his  people,  he  is  not  only  a  liar  but  a 
murderer  of  the  spiritual  life  of  his 
parish. 

This  neglect  of  the  people  on  the  part 
of  the  minister  is  more  common  than  one 
likes  .to  acknowledge.  Selfishness  may 
crop  out  in  a  man's  vocabulary.  Because 
a  minister  is  familiar  with  the  language  of 


102    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

German  philosophers  and  Scotch  meta- 
physicians he  may  thoughtlessly  use  this 
dialect  in  addressing  business  men  and 
farmers,  servant  girls  and  mechanics, 
uncaring  whether  they  understand  him 
or  not.  The  man  with  the  unselfish  heart 
sanctifies  his  language  for  the  sake  of  his 
people.  He  trims  his  sentences  and 
simplifies  his  periods  until  his  thought 
stands  out  radiant  and  compelling  before 
every  attentive  mind.  He  makes  him- 
self of  no  reputation  and  takes  upon  him 
the  form  of  a  servant  and  is  made  in  the 
likeness  of  a  man.  By  humbling  himself 
and  becoming  obedient  to  the  law  of  the 
cross  God  highly  exalts  him  by  giving 
him  access  to  the  hearts  of  his  hearers. 
A  man  of  S3mipathy  instinctively  thinks 
of  the  limitations  and  needs  of  those  with 
whom  he  deals.  Paul  always  carried  in 
his  mind's  eye  the  faces  of  the  unlearned 
and  the  unbelieving.  He  insisted  that  a 
church   service  ought  to   be  shaped  with 


Selfishness.  103 

these  people  in  mind.  If  they  could  not 
understand  what  was  going  on  they  could 
take  no  part  in  the  service  and  might 
think  Christians  out  of  their  head.  He 
was  hotly  vehement  in  his  denunciation 
of  the  selfishness  which  uses  language 
that  edifies  the  speaker  but  does  not 
enlighten  the  hearers.  In  a  burst  of 
magnificent  earnestness  he  says,  "  In 
the  church  I  had  rather  speak  five 
words  with  my  understanding  that  by 
my  voice  I  might  teach  others  also,  than 
ten  thousand  words  in  an  unknown 
tongue."  Would  that  this  Pauline  com- 
mon-sense were  abundant  in  all  our 
pulpits ! 

Tb'"  choice  of  themes  often  bears  wit- 
ness to  this  same  deep  seated  sin.  The 
true  preacher  lives  for  his  people.  To 
build  them  up  is  his  supreme  delight. 
For  their  sakes  he  shapes  his  reading  and 
directs  the  main  currents  of  his  thought. 
Their    aptitudes    and    attainments,    their 


104    Qtiiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

conscious  wants  and  their  unconscious 
needs  stand  before  him  day  and  night 
like  so  many  angels  of  the  Lord  sent  to 
tell  him  of  what  sort  his  sermons  ought  to 
be.  But  not  every  minister  listens  to 
these  angels.  Personal  tastes  are  often 
followed,  favorite  lines  of  study  are  pur- 
sued with  no  consideration  of  the  parish 
needs.  Literary  ambitions  are  cultivated 
and  scholastic  inclinations  gratified  in 
wicked  disregard  of  everybody  but  the 
preacher  himself.  Such  a  man  becomes 
a  specialist  and  while  cultivating  his  spe- 
cialty his  people  pay  the  bills.  They  come 
to  the  house  of  God  on  the  Lord's  day 
hungry  for  bread,  and  instead  of  bread 
they  receive  a  discussion  of  a  tangled 
problem  in  sociology,  or  the  elaboration  of 
a  distinction  which  struck  the  preacher's 
fancy  in  his  reading  of  the  last  new  vol- 
ume on  Ethics.  It  is  advantageous  and 
right  for  the  preacher  to  have  favorite 
studies  and  to  set  aside  particular  domains 


Selfishness.  105 

of  learning  for  special  cultivation,  but  over 
the  gateway  of  this  garden  the  words 
should  be  written,  **  For  their  sakes  I 
sanctify  myself,"  that  both  on  entering 
and  coming  out  of  the  garden  he  may  be 
reminded  of  the  obligation  which  sur- 
passes all  others  and  be  saved  from  the 
selfishness  which  favorite  studies  so  insidi- 
ously induce. 

To  persuade  a  clergyman  to  forsake  his 
parish  the  Devil  counts  his  greatest  victory. 
If  he  can  beguile  him  to  scamper  over  the 
country  giving  his  strength  and  time  to 
miscellaneous  audiences  while  his  own  peo- 
ple remain  at  home  unshepherded  and  un- 
trained, he  wins  a  triumph  over  which  the 
nether  world  rejoices.  An  English  writer 
of  note  has  said  that  the  Devil  in  our  day 
comes  to  ministers  disguised  as  a  railway 
train.  He  might  have  added  that  if  a 
Pullman  sleeper  cannot  catch  a  man,  the 
printing  press  may.  The  prophet  of  the 
Lord  may  be  seized  with  a  mania  for  writ- 


Io6    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

ing  books.  These  books  may  have  little 
relation  to  the  Gospel  or  to  the  needs  of 
his  congregation,  but  the  chapters  of  these 
books  may  be  worked  off  on  unsuspecting 
and  defenseless  saints  as  sermons.  It  has 
happened  more  than  once  that  a  preacher 
has  allowed  his  pulpit  ministration  to  be 
determined  largely  by  the  demands  of  his 
publisher.  A  man  who  perpetrates  the 
chapters  of  his  next  book  on  his  people 
not  because  his  people  need  these  chapters 
but  because  his  publisher  can  use  them, 
may  excuse  himself  by  saying  that  in  his 
books  he  can  serve  a  larger  audience  than 
could  be  assembled  inside  his  church  walls, 
but  the  average  layman  who  has  not  de- 
bauched his  conscience  by  any  such  sophis- 
tical argumentation  will  say  that  the  man 
who  receives  a  salary  from  one  set  of  peo- 
ple for  time  and  strength  which  he  habitu- 
ally gives  to  others,  and  who  uses  the 
pulpit  simply  as  a  source  of  supplies  while 
engaged  in  a  work  other  than  that  which 


Selfishness.  107 

he  has  promised  to  perform,  is  a  shirk  and 
a  scamp  even  though  he  is  a  Doctor  of 
Divinity  and  pursues  his  rascality  for  the 
avowed  glory  of  God. 

A  minister  owes  much  to  his  community, 
denomination,  and  country.  The  man  who 
steadfastly  stays  at  home  refusing  to  turn 
a  wheel  or  lift  a  burden  outside  his  own 
little  parish  is  the  victim  of  a  selfishness 
as  loathsome  as  any  of  those  above  men- 
tioned. Upon  the  Lord's  wide  work  a 
minister  must  look  with  sympathetic  eyes, 
and  to  many  companies  of  brethren  he 
must  give  himself  as  occasion  offers  with 
generosity  and  gladness.  But  he  belongs 
first  of  all  to  his  parish.  The  field  in 
which  he  works  is  the  world,  and  his  church 
is  the  force  with  which  he  cultivates  the 
field.  To  develop  and  consolidate  this 
force  and  use  it  with  increasing  efficiency 
in  subduing  the  world,  this  must  be  his 
supreme  ambition,  his  constant  study,  his 
incessant  care.     To  love  his  brethren  over 


io8    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

whom  he  has  been  appointed  teacher  and 
shepherd,  this  is  the  beginning  and  end  of 
the  whole  matter.  "  Let  us  not  then  love 
in  word,  neither  in  tongue ;  but  in  deed 
and  in  truth." 


Dishonesty,  109 


XIV. 

Dishonesty, 

If  an  honest  man's  the  noblest  work  of 
God,  Satan's  ignoblest  masterpiece  is  a 
dishonest  Christian  minister.  Nothing  so 
undermines  the  confidence  of  laymen  in 
their  spiritual  leader  as  the  slightest  indi- 
cation in  him  of  double-dealing.  No  sin  is 
more  deadly  and  degrading  to  a  man  of 
God  than  insincerity. 

**  That  one  error 
Fills  him  with   faults;   makes   him   run   through   all 
the  sins." 

If  a  man  is  crotchety  he  can  be  tolerated ; 
if  he  is  prejudiced  or  ignorant  he  can  be 
borne  with ;  he  may  be  lacking  in  a  score 
of  qualities  which  men  count  desirable  and 
still  be  a  useful  and  an  honored  man.     But 


no    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

who  can  endure  a  minister  who  cheats  or 
lies  ?  The  gospel  preached  by  such  a  man 
falls  dead  and  deadening.  Prayer  on  his 
lips  seems  blasphemy.  A  religious  service 
conducted  by  him  exasperates  every  heart 
which  doubts  him.  Deplorable  is  the 
condition  of  a  church  which  has  in  its  pul- 
pit an  anointed  rogue. 

Deliberate  and  cold-blooded  liars  are  not 
numerous  in  the  pulpit,  but  there  are  many 
men  there  who  lack  a  fine  and  scrupulous 
regard  for  truth.  The  ethical  sense  even 
in  ethical  teachers  may  become  strangely 
blunted,  and  men  of  noble  gifts  and  lofty 
purposes  have  a  curious  fashion  of  doing 
unexpected  and  indefensible  things.  A 
minister's  environment  has  a  tendency  to 
develop  in  him  whatever  germs  of  un- 
veracity  preceding  generations  may  have 
bequeathed  him.  Many  things  are  ex- 
pected of  him  and  it  is  human  to  shrink 
from  disappointing  expectations.  He  is 
expected  to   know  everybody  with  whom 


Dishonesty.  1 1 1 

he  has  ever  shaken  hands.  To  speak  a 
bHghting,  "No,"  to  a  trustful,  smiUng  in- 
dividual who  innocently  asks,  "  Do  you 
remember  me  ?  "  seems  an  act  of  needless 
cruelty.  The  consequence  is  that  there 
are  ministers  who  remember  everybody  for- 
ever. They  read  Paul's  exhortation,  "  Lie 
not  one  to  another  "  without  wincing.  A 
minister  is  expected  to  rejoice  with  every- 
body who  rejoices  and  to  weep  with  every- 
body who  weeps,  and  it  is  the  requirement 
of  his  office  that  he  should  give  expression 
to  these  sympathetic  feelings.  Is  it  to  be 
wondered  at  that  his  language  sometimes 
becomes  conventional  and  that  his  asser- 
tions occasionally  have  a  hollow  ring }  To 
be  deeply  interested  in  a  large  number  of 
human  beings  passing  through  a  wide 
variety  of  experiences  is  possible  but  not 
easy,  and  men  of  narrow  nature  in  using 
the  broad  and  throbbing  phrases  of  Chris- 
tian brotherhood  find  themselves  some- 
times saying  things  which  their  heart  does 


1 1 2    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

not  follow.  Human  nature  in  many  in- 
dividuals is  excessively  fond  of  praise. 
Without  it  there  is  a  coolness  toward  the 
church  and  preacher.  How  easy  to  pour 
the  oil  of  adulation  over  the  heads  of  these 
influential  people  until  it  runs  down  upon 
the  beard  even  to  the  skirts  of  the  gar- 
ments !  The  habit  of  giving  expression  to 
genuine  appreciation  and  merited  com- 
mendation is  both  proper  and  lovely,  but 
when  politic  adjectives  and  appeasing  ad- 
verbs are  scattered  with  a  reckless  dis- 
regard of  truth,  the  preacher  is  securing 
an  improvement  in  church  climate  at  the 
sacrifice  of  his  soul. 

It  is  in  these  genteel  and  apparently 
unescapable  ways  that  the  minister  re- 
ceives his  first  lessons  in  departing  from 
the  truth.  The  departure  once  made  other 
steps  are  not  difficult.  On  going  into  the 
pulpit  certain  things  are  expected  and  the 
good  natured  man,  always  ready  to  oblige, 
proceeds  to  meet   expectations.     Ancient 


Dishonesty.  1 1 3 

doctrines  couched  in  traditional  language 
will  satisfy  the  men  and  women  of  light 
and  leading,  and  so  the  ancient  doctrines 
are  elaborately  set  forth,  though  the  min- 
ister if  punctiliously  faithful  to  his  convic- 
tions would  make  considerable  subtractions 
and  sundry  additions.  To  say  precisely 
what  one  believes  in  a  place  consecrated 
to  traditional  interpretations  and  in  the 
presence  of  people  who  are  expecting 
statements  to  which  they  have  grown  ac- 
customed is  not  easy. 

There  are  not  so  many  lying  cowards 
in  the  pulpit  as  bitter  critics  see  there, 
although  the  number  is  no  doubt  larger 
than  it  ought  to  be.  Pulpit  lying  is 
generally  of  an  unpremeditated  and  almost 
unconscious  sort.  There  are  clerical  Mun- 
chausens  who  run  a  thread  of  romance 
through  their  sermons  without  the  slight- 
est compunctions  of  conscience.  They 
have  fibbed  so  long  they  cannot  tell  fiction 
from  truth.     These  are  the  men  who  simu- 


114    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

late  emotions  which  they  do  not  feel,  and 
narrate  events  which  never  happened,  and 
throw  in  exaggerations  to  heighten  the 
effect,  and  tell  what  they  thought,  while 
on  the  Atlantic  or  the  Alps  although  the 
idea  first  reached  them  in  their  study. 
All  of  these  prevarications  seem  to  spring 
out  of  a  certain  oratorical  fervor  rather 
than  from  the  deep  soil  of  the  heart. 
This  oratorical  fervor  is  often  responsible 
for  lamentable  behavior.  Men  become  so 
zealous  for  the  truth  they  lie  for  it.  They 
misrepresent  their  opponents,  and  mis- 
report  what  men  of  other  schools  of 
thought  have  said  and  written.  It  is  hard 
for  some  men  to  controvert  the  opinion  of 
another  man  without  telling  lies  about 
him.  In  every  season  of  theological  con- 
troversy the  amount  of  pious  mendacity  is 
incalculable.  The  heavenly  treasures  are 
indeed  in  earthen  vessels. 

But  there  is  another  form  of  dishonesty 
which   seems   to  bear   upon   its  forehead 


Dishonesty.  115 

more  unmistakably  the  brand  of  the  pit. 
A  man  in  the  heat  of  discourse  may  run 
into  statements  which  cannot  be  defended, 
but  what  shall  we  say  of  a  man  who 
deliberately  lays  his  plans  to  deceive  ? 
Appearance  rather  than  reality  is  still  to 
many  minds  the  one  thing  essential,  and 
an  occasional  minister  is  ready  to  lend 
himself  to  the  unholy  work  of  making  his 
church  seem  other  than  it  is.  Matthew 
Arnold  has  told  us  of  our  dangerous 
admiration  for  numbers,  and  in  his  essay 
he  might  have  incorporated  a  paragraph 
with  windows  opening  out  upon  the  clergy. 
In  an  age  which  measures  institutions  not 
by  spirit  but  by  bulk,  and  which  ranks 
men  not  by  the  fineness  of  their  achieve- 
ments but  by  the  magnitude  of  their  opera- 
tions, a  minister,  if  ambitious,  is  constantly 
tempted  to  increase  the  size  of  his  church 
organization  at  the  expense  of  its  interior 
life.  People  are  hustled  into  the  church 
unprepared    spiritually  for   its   obligations 


Ii6    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

and  duties,  and  thus  organized  Christianity 
becomes  weighted  down  with  a  mass  of 
material  which  it  is  impossible  to  assimi- 
late and  difficult  to  cast  out.  Men  who 
build  into  the  temple  of  God  hay  and  wood 
and  stubble  are  the  scourge  of  the  modern 
church.  The  man  who  will  inflate  his 
church  to  impress  the  community  by  a 
display  of  figures  is  a  man  who  will  pursue 
dishonest  courses  to  cover  up  a  numerical 
shrinkage.  Church  rolls  are  often  left 
unpruned  for  years,  the  names  of  the  long 
absent  and  even  the  dead  being  jealously 
hoarded  in  order  that  steady  and  dis- 
heartening losses  may  be  kept  from  public 
knowledge,  and  the  preacher  enjoy  the 
reputation  which  a  large  church  is  sup- 
posed to  give. 

Brethren,  be  honest !  Though  the  heav- 
ens fall,  be  honest  !  "  The  church  exists," 
as  Newman  says,  *'not  to  make  a  show 
but  to  do  a  work."  You  are  representa- 
tives of  a  religion  whose  fundamental  virtue 


Dishonesty.  117 

is  sincerity,  and  the  community  has  a 
right  to  look  to  you  as  men  whose  place 
is  in  the  forefront  of  the  age-long  battle 
against  all  dishonesties  and  frauds  and 
shams. 


ii8    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 


XV. 

Autocracy. 

A  WITTY  New  Englander  has  given  the 
world  a  fascinating  sketch  of  the  Autocrat 
of  the  Breakfast  Table,  but  no  one  has 
yet  given  us  a  full  length  portrait  of  the 
Autocrat  of  the  Communion  Table.  The 
Communion  Table  is  used  in  this  connec- 
tion as  a  symbol  of  clerical  prerogative. 
No  one  can  touch  it  but  a  minister.  Not 
even  lay  officials  can  take  the  bread  and 
wine  until  they  have  passed  through  cler- 
ical hands.  There  is  here  a  distinguishing 
distinction  which  lifts  the  minister  above 
his  brethren  ;  and  all  distinctions,  however 
justifiable  and  necessary,  have  a  tendency 
to  feed  the  pope  which  comes  into  the 
world  with  every  man.     The  environment 


Autocracy,  119 

of  a  clergyman  contains  abundant  nutri- 
ment for  the  nourishment  of  the  papal 
proclivities  of  human  nature.  Not  only  is 
there  a  gulf  between  clergy  and  laity  worn 
broad  and  deep  in  popular  thought  by  the 
teaching  of  a  thousand  years,  but  a  minis- 
ter's work  is  of  such  a  nature  as  constantly 
to  give  him  the  sense  of  importance  and 
authority.  Does  he  not  speak  for  God  } 
Is  he  not  a  successor  of  the  Apostles } 
Has  not  a  sacred  charge  been  entrusted 
to  his  keeping  }  The  very  dignity  of  his 
work  gives  him  a  lofty  mindedness  which 
easily  passes  into  pride  and  makes  him 
exceeding  jealous  of  all  outside  inter- 
ference. Moreover,  in  his  preaching  no 
one  is  allowed  to  contradict  him.  No 
matter  what  he  says  the  congregation  sits 
dumb  and  acquiescing.  Bitter  protests 
may  rise  in  the  hearers'  hearts  but  they 
fall  back  dead,  strangled  in  the  silence. 
If  laymen  were  allowed  to-day  the  privi- 
leges  they  enjoyed  in  the  time  of  Jesus, 


I20    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

and  could  say  to  ministers  as  they  said  to 
him  right  in  the  midst  of  the  sermon,  — 
"  You  are  crazy  !  What  do  you  mean  by 
that  ?  "  church  decorum  would  be  badly 
mangled,  but  the  minister  would  be  saved 
from  a  temptation  which  like  a  beast  now 
crouches  at  his  door.  The  practice  of  pre- 
senting to  people  instruction  on  a  variety 
of  subjects  without  fear  of  open  contra- 
diction is  apt  to  beget  in  any  man  who 
is  not  constantly  on  his  guard  a  temper 
which  Shakespeare  takes  off  in  the  lines,. 

"  I  am  Sir  Oracle, 
And  when  I  ope  my  lips 
Let  no  dog  bark." 

It  is  this  immunity  from  contradiction 
on  the  Lord's  day  which  renders  many  a 
minister  so  difficult  to  live  with  through 
the  week.  He  cannot  suffer  opposition  at 
any  point  in  the  entire  circle  of  church 
administration.  To  differ  from  him  is 
spiritual  treason,  to  oppose  him  in  any  of 
his  movements  is  to  be  a  son  of  Belial. 


Autocracy.  121 

It  is  this  stripe  of  man  who  wants 
to  run  a  church.  He  is  sure  to  meet  a 
layman  who  wants  to  run  it  too.  And 
then  —  !  But  a  church  cannot  be  run  by 
anybody  except  to  its  destruction.  A 
church  is  an  organism  and  Hke  all  organ- 
isms it  refuses  to  be  run.  It  will  grow  if 
carefully  nourished  and  guided,  but  to  run 
it  is  to  wreck  it.  It  is  as  delicate  as  a 
lily  and  as  dependent  on  the  law  of  free- 
dom. The  earth  does  not  run  the  lily. 
It  holds  the  lily  tenderly  by  its  roots  and 
then  gives  it  largest  liberty  to  unfold  in 
obedience  to  that  mystic  genius  with  which 
the  lily  is  endowed.  A  church  must 
receive  nourishment  from  the  preacher, 
but  it  is  not  for  him  to  determine  the 
shape  of  each  petal  or  the  precise  length 
of  its  stem.  Or  to  change  the  figure,  a 
church  is  a  family  and  a  family  cannot  be 
run.  Some  men  try  to  do  it  and  the  re- 
sult is  a  tragedy  which  shows  itself  in  the 
face  of  the  wife  and  the  disposition  of  the 


122    Quiet  Hijtts  to  Growing  Preachers. 

children.  One  can  run  a  hotel  but  not  a 
home.  That  home  is  happiest  in  which 
there  is  least  visible  constraint  and  most 
spontaneity  and  affection.  A  machine 
may  be  run  but  not  a  household,  a  busi- 
ness enterprise  but  not  a  church.  Some 
men  now  in  the  ministry  were  evidently 
intended  for  engineers  or  managers  of 
railroads  and  trusts.  They  cannot  free 
themselves  from  the  conviction  that  the 
church  is  a  machine  which  they  are  to 
run  along  a  track  of  their  own  devising 
to  the  destruction  of  every  obstreperous 
layman  who  gets  in  their  way.  A  church 
is  a  family  and  wise  is  the  minister  who  is 
content  to  let  it  grow.  It  is  for  him  to 
create  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  lovely 
things  of  the  spirit  shall  come  to  their 
best  estate.  From  him  must  come  much 
of  the  energy  by  which  the  church  fulfills 
the  law  of  its  being,  but  he  will  often  do 
most  when  to  onlookers  he  seems  to  be 
doing  least.     Happy  is  the  man  who  has 


Autocracy.  123 

the  faculty  of  so  inspiring  his  church  with 
the  spirit  of  freedom  and  service  that  while 
he  himself  stands  in  the  background  the 
church  apparently  moves  of  itself  into  en- 
larging circles  of  spiritual  culture  and 
achievement. 

It  is  a  fatal  blunder  for  a  minister  to 
make  the  decalogue  and  his  own  wishes 
equally  binding  on  the  consciences  of  his 
people.  A  preacher  ought  to  prize  with 
all  diligence  the  men  who  differ  from  him 
and  make  use  of  their  gifts  up  to  the  level 
of  his  opportunity.  Every  church  ought 
to  have  in  it  men  of  all  types  of  disposi- 
tion and  temper  and  opinion  and  culture 
and  politics  and  theology.  No  one  type 
ought  to  be  suppressed  in  the  interest  of 
a  deadening  uniformity  or  for  the  purpose 
of  securing  universal  harmony  with  the 
preacher.  It  is  the  business  of  a  minister 
to  make  his  church  roomy.  He  must  be 
the  friend  of  the  radical  and  of  the  con- 
servative, of  the  orthodox  and  the  heretic, 


124    Quiet  Hints  to   Growing  Preachers. 

of  the  zealous  and  the  phlegmatic,  of  the 
sane  and  the  crotchety,  of  the  popular  and 
the  friendless,  of  the  man  who  is  with  him 
and  the  man  also  who  is  against  him,  mak- 
ing himself  all  things  to  all  men  that  he 
may  do  them  good.  For  him  to  drive  out 
the  men  who  do  not  agree  with  his  theol- 
ogy or  politics,  or  refuse  to  fall  in  with  his 
favorite  enterprises,  is  to  rob  the  church 
of  its  virility  and  originality  and  cripple  it 
hopelessly  in  the  work  it  aims  to  do. 

A  minister  must  learn  to  labor  and 
submit.  Cromwell's  dictum  is  worth  re- 
membering, "  In  yielding  there  is  wis- 
dom." Even  a  good  man  is  not  infallible 
and  the  stars  will  not  fall  from  heaven 
though  the  preacher  fails  to  get  his  way. 
The  things  which  a  church  ought  to  have 
will  come  to  it  not  by  pushing  but  by 
waiting.  Horace  Bushnell  late  in  life 
said  that  could  he  live  his  life  over  again 
he  would  never  push.  The  fable  of  the 
sun  and  wind  making  a  wager  as  to  their 


Autocracy.  125 

ability  to  compel  a  traveler  to  remove  his 
cloak  is  not  without  significance  for  the 
man  who  would  deal  successfully  with 
men.  The  minister  who  in  order  to  induce 
his  people  to  throw  off  habits  or  notions 
which  he  does  not  like,  converts  himself 
into  a  cold  North-Easter,  filling  Sunday 
mornings  with  his  icy  blasts,  will  not  suc- 
ceed in  the  thing  which  he  aims  at  and 
may  possibly  blow  himself  out  of  the 
pulpit. 


126   Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 


XVI. 

Vanity, 

A  WRITER  of  discernment  has  confi- 
dently asserted  that  all  women  are  vain  — 
and  men  more  so.  If  ministers  are  not 
vain  it  is  not  because  of  any  lack  of  provo- 
cation. A  preacher's  gifts  are  exercised 
in  public  places.  He  is  pre-eminently  a 
speaker  and  those  who  speak  stand,  as  it 
were,  on  a  pedestal,  the  observed  of  all 
observers.  No  matter  how  modest  by 
native  disposition  the  clergyman  may  be, 
publicity  is  thrust  upon  him,  and  if  he  be 
a  man  of  gifts  he  stands  perpetually  in  a 
golden  shower  of  praise. 

Every  gift,  no  matter  what  it  is,  has  a 
coiled  serpent  it.  A  man's  deadliest  dan- 
ger lies  ever  at  the  center  of  his  greatest 


Vanity.  127 

strength.  If  a  minister's  most  conspicu- 
ous gift  is  a  rich  and  interpreting  voice, 
then  of  his  voice  let  him  beware.  Many 
a  man  has  had  his  usefulness  destroyed 
by  the  very  gift  which  should  have  carried 
him  on  to  power.  The  abihty  to  utter 
sweet  and  thrilling  tones  may  lead  one 
into  a  habit  of  indulging  in  vocal  parades 
full  of  music  but  void  of  the  Gospel.  It 
is  doubtful  if  there  is  a  more  luxurious  in- 
toxication than  that  experienced  by  a  man 
who,  gifted  with  a  voice  of  compass  and 
passion,  knows  how  to  use  it  in  mastering 
an  audience.  Not  only  do  the  tones 
soothe  and  entrance  the  hearers,  they  also 
mesmerize  the  speaker.  Under  the  spell 
of  his  own  utterance  a  man  sometimes 
loses  sight  of  his  argument,  and  instead 
of  working  to  lift  his  congregation  to  the 
level  of  a  high  ideal  he  falls  to  playing 
with  his  voice,  tripping  up  and  down  the 
scale  to  exhibit  its  flexibility,  exploding  in 
thunder-claps  to  display  its  volume,  rolling 


128   Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

melodious  modulations  out  over  the  heads 
of  his  hearers  to  test  and  exercise  the  mar- 
velous organ  with  which  a  generous  God 
has  endowed  him.  Every  acute-eared 
church  goer  has  heard  men  preach  who 
showed  by  their  entire  vocal  behavior  that, 
they  cared  less  for  their  ideas  than  for 
their  cadences  and  intonations.  One  can- 
not hear  these  elocutionary  peacocks  in 
their  sermonic  strut  without  wanting  to 
cry  out,  *'  Quit  your  fooling  and  come 
down  !  "  Sometimes  the  conceit  is  ridicu- 
lous to  the  verge  of  nauseating,  for  a  man 
may  be  flushed  over  tones  of  which  he 
has  every  reason  to  he  ashamed.  What 
spectacle  more  ludicrous  and  sickening 
than  a  man  attempting  with  pompous 
mouthings  to  give  expression  to  a  mes- 
sage so  sweet  and  simple  as  the  gospel 
of  that  plain  man  of  Galilee.  If  the  men 
who  indulge  in  starched  and  sonorous 
sounds  with  pompous  self-complacency  and 
amusing  solemnity  and  fervor  only  knew 


Vanity.  1 29 

how  grotesque  and  silly  their  whole  per- 
formance is  they  would  throw  aside  for- 
ever their  elocutionary  airs  and  be  content 
to  be  just  sensible  plain-spoken  men. 

All  preaching  rests  upon  a  physical 
foundation.  A  commanding  presence  is 
a  gift  of  the  Almighty.  *'  Big-boned  men 
framed  of  the  Cyclops  size  "  have  an  im- 
measurable advantage  over  men  of  equal 
intellect  but  of  slighter  girth  and  stature. 
A  handsome  man  in  the  pulpit  woos  and 
wins  the  eyes,  and  winning  the  eyes  is 
almost  half  the  conquest  of  the  heart. 
We  are  predisposed  to  listen  to  the  mes- 
senger who  comes  to  us  with  a  majestic 
bearing.  Some  men  subdue  an  audience 
before  they  speak  a  word.  But  this  physi- 
cal pre-eminence  is  not  without  its  dangers. 
It  raises  expectations  difficult  to  meet. 
When  men  look  Hke  Apollo  we  anticipate 
something  divine.  When  they  resemble 
Webster  we  demand  that  their  thought 
shall  match  their  looks.     A  dwarfed  and 


130   Quiet  Hints  to  Growing-  Preachers. 

bloodless   sermon   from    a   man   with    the 
mien  of  Jupiter  is  resented  as  an  insult. 

A  glorious  body  may  induce  a  vanity  in 
its  possessor  which  manifests  itself  in  the 
form  of  self-confidence.  Good  looks  will 
carry  a  minister  far  but  not  to  the  end  of 
the  day.  A  congregation  can  be  impressed 
for  a  season  by  a  massive  body  and  by 
the  ponderous  tones  of  a  commanding 
voice,  but  if  the  man  in  the  pulpit  is  only 
a  well-groomed  animal  repeating  pious 
platitudes  with  the  final  tones  of  a  Son  of 
Thunder,  he  will  early  lose  his  church  and 
find  it  hard  to  get  another.  Let  all  the 
pulpit  Sauls  beware !  They  are  undoubt- 
edly of  the  elect,  but  like  their  thin-chested, 
low-statured  brethren,  they  must  work  to 
make  their  calling  and  election  sure.  A 
man  of  superb  physique  is  under  special 
obligation  to  fill  his  sermons  with  virility 
and  mental  fire.  If  because  upon  his  body 
every  god  has  set  his  seal  to  give  the  world 
assurance  of  a  man  of  power,  he  becomes 


Vanity,  131 

inflated  and  shirks  the  tough,  hard  toil 
which  sermon  creation  inexorably  demands, 
he  is  like  the  fool  who  built  his  house  upon 
the  sand.  The  storm  is  coming  and  there 
will  be  a  fall. 

Literary  style  is  even  more  dangerous 
than  good  looks.  The  last  has  killed  its 
thousands,  the  first  its  tens  of  thousands. 
Men  too  noble  to  be  vain  of  a  comely 
body  succumb  to  the  seductive  power  of 
success  in  using  words.  To  speak  and 
write  one's  language  with  elegance  and 
precision  is  an  achievement  which  rightly 
brings  a  sense  of  satisfaction.  Expressing 
thought  with  distinction  and  grace  is  an 
art  so  difficult  that  men  work  for  it  as 
those  who  dig  for  hid  treasures.  With 
certain  men  the  cultivation  of  style  be- 
comes a  mania.  For  literary  finish  they 
are  willing  to  sacrifice  all  the  weightier 
matters  of  the  law.  Clearness  and  force 
and  effectiveness  they  pass  over  as  trifles, 
while   they  give  tithes  of   the    anise    and 


132    Quiet  Hmts  to  Growing  Preachers, 

cumin  which  grow  in  the  garden  of  speech. 
It  is  not  slander  but  truth  to  say  that  there 
are  men  now  preaching  the  Gospel  to 
whom  the  ideas  of  their  next  sermon  are 
of  less  moment  than  the  literary  costume 
in  which  the  ideas  are  to  be  dressed.  These 
men  wear  their  life  out  on  their  rhetorical 
finery,  widening  the  fringes  and  multiply- 
ing the  tassels,  seeking  like  similar  ped- 
ants of  an  earlier  day,  the  praise  of  men, 
and  not  the  honor  which  comes  from  God 
only. 

But  even  these  verbal  fancy-work  preach- 
ers have  their  admirers.  No  matter  what 
a  minister  does  some  one  is  sure  to  com- 
mend him.  No  other  man  in  the  town  is 
so  praised  as  he.  He  may  have  a  host  of 
enemies  but  he  is  never  without  his  friends. 
He  may  be  criticised  and  abused,  but  he 
will  also  be  complimented  and  flattered. 
No  matter  how  poor  his  sermon  some  one 
will  find  in  it  the  word  of  God  and  tell 
him  so.     His  prayer   may  be   feeble   but 


Vanity.  133 

some  saint  will  thank  him  for  it.  Through 
the  mail  he  receives  notes  of  appreciation 
and  thanksgiving.  To  some  people  he  is 
surpassingly  great.  There  probably  never 
lived  a  preacher  who  was  not  to  at  least  one 
soul  the  greatest  man  since  Paul.  All  this 
is  sweet  and  dangerous.  To  many  it  is 
fatal.  Praise  humbles  some  men,  other 
men  it  spoils.  They  become  conceited, 
lazy,  reckless,  unbearable.  Puffed  up  by  the 
eulogies  of  sentimental  admirers  they  lose 
the  vigor  of  manliness  and  degenerate  into 
clerical  fops.  Popularity  is  the  most  fear- 
ful of  all  tests.  If  any  man  thinks  he 
stands  let  him  take  heed. 


134    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 


XVII. 

Discontent. 

When  Paul  assured  the  Philippians  that 
he  had  learned  in  whatever  state  he  was 
therewith  to  be  content,  he  confessed  a 
higher  state  of  grace  than  many  of  the 
successors  of  the  Apostles  have  yet  at- 
tained. Discontent  may  be  said  to  be 
one  of  the  prevailing  sins  of  the  minis- 
terial world.  How  prevalent  it  is  the 
public  does  not  fully  know,  for  ministers 
who  are  discontented  do  not  shout  their 
dissatisfaction  from  the  house-top.  They 
write  it  in  bulky  letters  and  send  it  in 
sealed  packages  to  their  ministerial  breth- 
ren. The  number  of  preachers  now  wish- 
ing a  change  of  pastorate  cannot  be 
accurately  computed,  but  if   all  the  facts 


Discontent  135 

were  known  the  world  would  be  astounded. 
Men  in  the  East,  fretted  by  the  stereo- 
typed customs  of  fossilized  communities, 
look  with  longing  toward  the  West  with 
dreams  of  the  blessedness  that  must  belong 
to  ministers  who  can  take  a  forward  step 
without  cracking  their  skull  against  a  prece- 
dent. Toilers  in  the  West,  sick  of  the 
unchartered  freedom  of  a  population  disin- 
clined to  submit  to  yokes  either  of  God 
or  men,  wish  themselves  in  the  East  where 
church-going  is  an  established  custom  and 
life  runs  smoothly  in  channels  made  for 
it  by  the  fathers.  Preachers  in  rural  places 
look  with  hungry  eyes  toward  the  city 
where  pulpit  gifts  and  graces  meet  with 
grateful  appreciation,  and  preachers  in  one 
city  look  toward  another  city  where  the 
mountains  have  been  apparently  leveled, 
and  the  ways  of  the  Lord  have  been  made 
straight.  Of  a  host  of  clergymen  it  may  be 
said  as  one  has  written  of  the  patriarchs, 
that  they  are  strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the 


136    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

earth,  and  declare  plainly  that  they  seek  a 
country. 

In  justice  to  the  clergy  it  must  be  said 
that  ambition  is  not  generally  the  inciting 
cause  of  this  restlessness.  The  popular  im- 
pression that  the  average  clergyman  stands 
on  tip-toe  eager  to  heed  the  beckoning  of 
the  first  parish  which  offers  a  larger  salary 
or  a  softer  bed  of  roses  is  as  malicious  as 
it  is  false.  The  explanation  of  the  desire 
to  escape  from  one  parish  to  another  may 
usually  be  found  in  the  fact  that  ministers 
like  other  mortals  do  not  like  to  be  un- 
comfortable, and  one  sees  fewer  brambles 
in  a  garden  which  some  other  man  has 
cultivated  than  in  the  garden  in  which  one 
works  himself.  Every  parish  has  in  it 
men  and  women  with  whom  it  is  difficult  to 
live,  and  every  church  has  problems  which 
are  a  burden  to  the  heart.  Some  men  are 
so  constituted  that  they  cannot  carry 
heavy  burdens  or  face  circumstances 
which  prick  like  thorns.  Their  first  impulse 


Discontent.  137 

on  the  sight  of  any  difficulty  is  to  run.  A 
man  never  knows  a  parish  until  he  gets 
fairly  settled  in  it.  The  years  bring  out 
the  skeletons  as  the  night  brings  out  the 
stars.  A  few  church  skeletons  are  as  ter- 
rible to  a  timid  clergyman  as  graveyard 
ghosts  to  a  small  boy  after  dark.  He  may 
find  to  his  dismay  ancient  quarrels  which 
have  been  smoldering  several  generations 
and  which  at  his  first  important  movement 
blaze  out  in  a  conflagration  which  threatens 
to  burn  up  the  church.  He  may  find  a 
set  of  rogues  in  his  official  board,  or  a 
good-sized  Pharaoh  in  the  broad  aisle. 
The  church  may  be  tied  hand  and  foot 
by  the  pagan  notions  of  a  heathen  clique, 
or  the  choir  may  be  in  a  state  of  ferment 
sufficient  to  drive  the  spirit  of  devotion 
from  every  service.  Gray  headed  men  with 
antique  ideas  may  frown  down  every  sug- 
gested step  of  progress,  captious  critics 
may  carp  at  his  theology,  rhetoric  or  neck- 
tie, Euodias  and   Syntyche  may  heat  the 


138    Quiet  Hints  to  Grozving  Preachers. 

atmosphere  to  torrid  temperatures  because 
they  cannot  be  of  the  same  mind  in  the 
Lord,  prominent  pew-holders  may  give  up 
their  pews  and  disgruntled  workers  may 
resign  their  offices,  in  short  the  church 
may  have  so  many  devils  in  it  as  to  lead 
the  unhappy  preacher  to  question  whether 
by  any  amount  of  prayer  and  fasting  on 
his  part  the  unhallowed  brood  can  be  cast 
out.  A  man  in  such  circumstances  may 
honestly  wonder  whether  he  is  the  one 
who  is  intended  to  redeem  Israel  or 
whether  this  particular  parish  ought  not  to 
look  for  another. 

There  are  times  when  the  trouble  is  the 
outcome  of  an  evident  misfit.  When  this 
is  the  case  the  minister  should  promptly 
shake  the  dust  from  his  shoes,  for  there 
are  other  towns  and  cities  in  which  the 
Gospel  must  be  preached.  But  a  minister 
should  not  too  hastily  conclude  that 
because  things  are  not  altogether  pleasant 
the  Lord  has  need  of  him  elsewhere.     Un- 


Discontent.  1 39 

less  the  signs  of  an  irreparable  misfit  are 
numerous  and  unmistakable  the  minister 
ought  to  set  his  hand  resolutely  to  the 
plow  and  not  look  back  until  the  furrow 
has  been  finished.  It  is  not  becoming  in 
a  prophet  to  run  at  the  sight  of  trials.  It 
shows  fickleness  of  heart  to  accept  a 
church  and  then  drop  it  in  the  first  fit  of 
despondency.  If  he  accepts  the  care  of  a 
parish  in  need  of  a  surgical  operation  let 
him  perform  it  and  give  the  wounds  time 
to  heal  before  he  turns  the  patient  over 
to  a  new  practitioner.  Honorable  men 
will  not  toy  with  churches.  There  is 
something  of  the  sacredness  of  marriage 
in  the  pastoral  relation  and  when  once 
entered  on  it  is  for  better  or  for  worse. 
Short  pastorates  are  unfortunate  both  for 
pastors  and  people.  They  develop  in 
clergymen  and  laymen  dispositions  hurtful 
to  spiritual  growth.  If  a  man  knows  he 
has  but  a  short  time  in  a  parish  he  is 
tempted  to  do  the  things  which  are  easiest 


140    Quiet  Hints  to   Growing  Preachers. 

and  cheapest.     He  will  not  enter  deeply 
into  the  hearts  of  his  people  but  will  be  in 
danger  of  looking  upon  all  laymen  as  so 
many  pawns  to  be  manipulated  in  an  inter- 
esting game  of  ecclesiastical  chess.     It  is 
the    long  pastorate   which    draws    on    the 
fountains  which    are  deepest    and    which 
builds  up  in  congregation  and  pastor  those 
elements  of  character  in  which  the  New 
Testament  exults    and    rejoices.     A  man 
who  expects  to  live  with  the  same  people 
through   many  years  will  have   every  in- 
centive to    be  sane  and     industrious,    far 
sighted  and  true.     He  will  not  hesitate  to 
enter  upon  schemes  of  education  and  train- 
ing which  can  be  completed   only  in  long 
periods  of  time,  and  his  life,  blending  more 
and  more  with  the  life  of  his  people,  will 
grow  richer    and   fuller  unto  the    perfect 
day. 

Be  content  wherever  you  are,  my 
brother,  and  whether  you  abound  or  are 
in   want  be  not   hasty  to  take   up  arm§ 


Discontent.  141 

against  a  sea  of  troubles  and  attempt  to 
end  them  by  running  away.  For  in  that 
change  of  place  what  dreams  may  come 
and  rough  awakenings  who  knows !  It  may 
be  your  present  parish  is  obscure,  but 
blessed  is  the  man  with  grace  sufficient  to 
grow  in  the  shade.  It  is  said  that  the 
chief  reason  why  the  sugar  maple  makes 
up  a  great  part  of  the  native  forests  of 
New  England  is  that  the  maple  is  willing 
to  grow  in  the  shade.  It  is  taking  prece- 
dence of  all  other  trees  because  a  young 
maple  is  always  in  training  ready  to  take 
the  place  of  any  tree  which  may  die.  Go 
to  the  Maple,  young  preacher,  consider  her 
ways  and  be  wise.  In  a  few  years  the 
great  trees  of  the  clerical  forest  will  lie 
low,  and  your  final  place  will  depend  in 
large  measure  on  your  present  willingness 
to  grow  in  the  shade. 


142    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 


XVIII. 

Pettiness, 

Certain  vices  only  mar,  others  lacerate 
and  kill.  Not  one  of  them  kills  more 
surely  than  a  petty  disposition.  Some 
weaknesses  eat  into  the  husk  and  bark  of 
a  man's  life,  but  leaving  the  core  untouched 
they  do  not  fatally  interfere  with  his  preach- 
ing :  but  pettiness  is  a  sin  which  blasts  life 
at  its  center  and  takes  out  of  preaching 
the  spirit  which  gives  power. 

The  Christian  religion  is  nothing  if  not 
large.  It  spreads  over  us  an  infinite  sky 
and  throws  around  us  horizons  whose  di- 
ameters cannot  be  measured.  The  men 
to  whom  it  mtroduces  us  are  large  men, 
who  revere  the  Maker  and  who  have 
fetched  their  eyes  "up  to  his  style  and 


Pettiness.  1 43 

manners  of  the  sky."  Their  temper  is 
heroic,  their  sympathy  all-embracing,  their 
spirit  God-like.  The  ideals  which  hang 
before  them  shine  as  with  the  glory  of 
celestial  worlds  and  the  motives  which  fire 
and  impel  their  hearts  are  lofty  as  those 
which  move  archangels.  At  the  center  of 
this  immortal  company  stands  the  man  of 
Galilee  from  whose  lips  the  minister  must 
take  his  message  and  from  whose  heart  he 
must  draw  the  inspiration  by  which  he  is 
to  prevail  with  men.  Only  a  man  of  mag- 
nanimous spirit  can  be  loyal  to  such  a  mas- 
ter and  proclaim  effectively  so  grand  a 
message.  A  man  with  meager  sympathies 
and  stunted  spirit  may  attempt  to  preach 
the  Gospel  but  it  will  shrivel  on  his  lips. 
No  man  truly  preaches  unless  through  him 
the  truth  can  make  its  way,  and  if  the 
channel  is  choked  or  narrowed  the  man 
may  go  on  talking  but  a  preacher  he  can- 
not be.  A  sermon  is  the  life-blood  of  a 
man  baptized  into  the  spirit  of  the  Lord, 


144    Qiiiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

and  every  syllable  of  all  he  utters  must 
have  in  it  the  weight  of  a  full-statured 
Christ-like  man.  It  is  only  words  thus 
weighted  which  are  able  to  find  the  blood. 
The  Gospel  from  many  a  pulpit  goes  forth 
void  because  proclaimed  by  too  small  a 
man. 

Pettiness  sometimes  manifests  itself  in 
penuriousness.  Money  stirs  up  strange 
fevers  in  the  blood  and  in  some  men  it 
creates  a  parsimonious  disposition  which 
is  contemptible  in  any  man  and  doubly  so 
in  a  minister.  It  is  no  excuse  for  him  to 
say  that  his  salary  is  small,  and  that  there- 
fore he  must  pinch  and  screw,  and  haggle 
over  the  price  of  everything  he  buys. 
Poor  men  can  be  large-minded  in  money 
matters  if  they  will,  and  it  is  always  pos- 
sible to  be  economical  without  being  mean. 
Men  of  ability  have  thrown  away  their  in- 
fluence with  their  people  simply  by  the 
display  of  a  pickayunish,  close-fisted  dis- 
position which  rendered  them  despicable  to 


Pettiness.  145 

all  who  had  financial  dealings  with  them. 
Business  men  can  no  more  receive  the  Gos- 
pel from  such  a  man  than  from  the  Hps  of 
a  libertine  or  drunkard.  Clergymen  are 
as  a  class  the  most  generous  and  self- 
sacrificing  of  all  men,  but  if  all  secrets 
could  be  revealed  it  would  probably  be  dis- 
covered that  many  a  man  while  urging  his 
people  to  be  generous  has  forgotten  the 
value  of  the  contribution  box  to  his  own 
soul. 

Pettiness  takes  many  forms.  It  may 
crop  out  as  envy  and  envy  means  impo- 
tence and  death.  Who  can  stand  before 
envy  was  a  question  propounded  by  the 
philosophers  of  Israel  and  the  answer  is, 
No  one,  not  even  the  man  in  whose  heart 
the  hateful  sin  has  built  its  nest.  It  is 
rottenness  in  the  bones,  and  any  man 
afflicted  with  it  will  find  his  spiritual  life 
crumbling  down  into  a  shapeless  mass  of 
ruins.  Not  all  preachers  can  be  equally 
talented  or  equally  successful,  and  blessed 


146  Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

is  the  man  who  can  see  his  brother  march- 
ing grandly  on  in  advance  of  him  and  join 
in  the  hozannas  which  proclaim  his  coro- 
nation. Envy  is  a  sin  of  weakness,  and 
whoever  is  guilty  of  it  confesses  his  inferi- 
ority. It  is  a  viper  which  cannot  fasten 
on  the  soul  of  a  man  genuinely  strong. 
The  only  deliverance  from  its  poison  is  a 
new  infusion  of  the  blood  of  him  to  whom 
desire  for  pre-eminence  was  and  is  and  ever 
shall  be  ridiculous,  and  who  is  able  to  heal 
his  heralds  in  these  later  times  as  he 
cleansed  his  disciples  in  the  upper  chamber 
on  that  great  night  when  he  used  the 
basin  and  the  towel. 

This  hankering  for  first  place  some- 
times leads  to  something  akin  to  insanity. 
It  calls  forth  bursts  of  peevishness  and 
childishness  which  bring  a  blush  to  the 
cheek  of  every  manly-hearted  man  who 
is  called  upon  to  witness  them.  Some 
men  are  so  conscious  of  their  own  rights, 
and  so   punctilious   in  regard  to  the  pay- 


Pettiness.  147 

ment  of  the  pound  of  deference  which  the 
world  owes  them,  that  half  the  time  they 
are  in  a  huff  because  some  one  has  un- 
wittingly slighted  them  or  refused  to  pay 
them  the  last  farthing  of  etiquette  which 
was  their  due.  The  date  of  the  invitation, 
the  affixes  and  suffixes,  the  place  on  the 
program,  the  rank  in  the  procession,  these 
certainly  are  not  matters  of  life  and  death, 
but  some  men  make  them  such  to  their 
own  condemnation  and  the  chagrin  of 
their  fellows.  This  touchiness  often  in- 
creases with  age,  and  men  with  gray  hair 
are  sometimes  guilty  of  a  crochety  and 
morbid  insistence  on  trifles  which  stirs  up 
in  sensible  people  both  anathemas  and 
tears.  The  hoary  head  is  a  crown  of  glory 
if  it  be  found  in  the  way  of  righteousness, 
but  when  it  is  found  in  the  way  of  baby- 
ishness  the  gray  hair  is  only  a  bleached 
dunce-cap  on  the  head  of  a  fool.  Some 
men  cross  the  dead  line  in  the  pulpit  early 
because  they  become  in  their  interior  life 


148    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

so  insufferably  petty  and  foolish.  It  was 
Goethe  who  said  that  as  we  grow  older  it 
is  difficult  to  remain  as  wise  as  we  were. 
Occasionally  this  miserable  disposition 
develops  the  poison  of  malice.  The  slight 
is  too  serious  to  be  overlooked,  the  insult 
is  too  keen  to  be  forgiven.  And  so  the 
miserable  man  goes  on  preaching  the  New 
Testament  with  an  unforgiven  wrong 
rankling  in  his  heart.  Of  all  wretched 
mortals  none  is  more  to  be  pitied  than 
the  minister  of  Christ  who  attempts  to 
preach  the  gospel  with  a  quarrel  on  his 
conscience  not  yet  made  up  and  an  enemy 
on  his  heart  not  yet  forgiven.  Such  a 
spirit  curdles  the  milk  of  the  word,  and 
reduces  every  sermon  to  a  mockery.  The 
poor  man  cannot  open  the  New  Testament 
without  reading  there  his  condemnation. 
He  cannot  read  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
without  stumbling  over,  "  Leave  thy  gift 
before  the  altar,  go  and  be  reconciled  to 
thy   brother."      He   cannot   read    Peter's 


Pettiness.  149 

question,  "  Lord,  how  oft  shall  my  brother 
offend  me  and  I  forgive  him  ? "  for  the 
Lord's  answer  will  loom  up  before  him 
terrible  as  Elijah  before  Ahab  at  the 
gate  of  Naboth's  vineyard.  He  cannot 
read  Paul  without  receiving  such  dagger 
thrusts  as  "Be  ye  kind  one  to  another, 
tender-hearted,  forgiving  one  another  even 
as  God  for  Christ's  sake  hath  forgiven 
you."  He  cannot  read  John's  letters 
without  being  stricken  down  with  such 
bludgeons  as  "  He  that  loveth  not  his 
brother  abideth  in  death!"  He  cannot 
even  join  his  people  in  repeating  the 
Lord's  prayer  without  being  dragged  to 
the  judgment  bar  by  "Forgive  us  our 
debts  as  we  forgive  our  debtors."  A 
minister  of  the  gospel  of  love  who  has  an 
enemy  whom  he  is  unable  or  unwilling  to 
forgive  ought  to  repent  or  resign. 


1 50    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 


XIX. 

Foolishness, 

It  was  the  opinion  of  the  wise  men  of 
Israel  that  even  though  a  fool  be  brayed  in 
a  mortar,  yet  his  foolishness  will  not  de- 
part from  him ;  and  even  men  who  are  not 
fools  often  fall  into  forms  of  folly  from 
which  it  is  well  nigh  impossible  to  deliver 
them.  For  instance,  beginning  a  speech 
with  an  apology  is  a  piece  of  nonsense  un- 
provoked and  inexcusable,  but  if  you  wish 
to  break  a  man  of  that  habit  he  must  be 
caught  young.  There  are  ministers  who 
seem  incapable  of  giving  an  address  with- 
out an  elaborate  explanation  of  their  ina- 
bility to  do  justice  to  the  theme  or  the 
occasion.  But  why  squander  time  in 
announcing   what    will   become    perfectly 


Foolishness.  151 

clear  before  one  sits  down  ?  When  a  man 
is  allotted  a  limited  number  of  minutes  in 
which  to  unfold  an  important  subject,  it  is 
his  business  to  begin  at  once  upon  his  task 
and  not  squander  people's  time  in  weari- 
some explanations  of  his  inadequate  prep- 
aration or  with  egotistic  intimations  of  the 
wonderful  things  he  could  do  if  he  had 
only  been  given  a  fair  opportunity.  It 
was  a  shrewd  reader  of  the  human  heart 
who  said  that  an  apology  is  only  egotism 
turned  wrong  side  out.  But  the  apologetic 
devil  has  a  method  in  his  madness  beyond 
the  reach  of  reason.  The  larger  the  sub- 
ject and  the  shorter  the  time,  the  surer  is 
our  excuse-making  brother  to  enter  upon 
minute  lamentations  over  the  limitations 
under  which  he  must  speak.  When  the 
program  is  extended  and  every  moment  is 
golden  the  explanatory  dunce  is  at  his 
best.  It  is  then  that  he  performs  prodi- 
gies in  the  way  of  murdering  time  and 
multiplying  words.     Instead   of   plunging 


152    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

into  his  subject  without  a  syllable  of  ex- 
planation and  packing  into  the  fleeting 
moments  the  solid  gold  of  his  thought  he 
uses  up  the  patience  of  his  hearers  and  his 
own  opportunity  to  prove  himself  a  sensible 
man.  Every  theological  student  on  his 
graduation  day  ought  to  paste  in  his  hat 
the  stern  dictum  of  Emerson,  "  No  sensible 
man  ever  made  an  apology." 

This  sort  of  tomfoolery  may  be  carried 
into  the  pulpit  where  it  manifests  itself  in 
long-drawn-out  introductions,  and  exhaust- 
ing preparations  for  great  things  which 
never  come.  If  a  man  cannot  say  any- 
thing in  the  first  ten  minutes  of  his  sermon 
he  ought  to  drop  the  first  ten  and  begin 
with  the  second  ten.  Even  when  the 
introduction  is  excellent  it  may  be  out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  argument  it  leads  up 
to.  Building  the  porch  larger  than  the 
house  is  a  blunder  peculiar  to  the  builders 
of  sermons. 

It  is  at  the  beginning  and  ending  that 


Foolishness,  153 

one  is  most  tempted  to  waste  time.  Such 
expressions  as,  "In  conclusion,"  "finally," 
"  one  word  more,"  are  forms  of  speech  not 
only  useless  but  full  of  mischief.  What  is 
gained  by  telling  a  congregation  that  the 
end  is  drawing  near  ?  When  the  "  one 
word  more "  becomes  like  the  widow's 
cruse  of  oil,  the  hearts  of  the  faithful  faint 
within  them.  A  blunderbuss  after  saying, 
"  Finally,"  is  sure  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  a 
new  idea,  and  straightway  pursuing  this, 
he  will  forget  all  about  the  promise  he  has 
made  his  hearers,  and  will  go  off  on  expe- 
ditions more  extended  than  any  ventured 
on  in  the  body  of  his  discourse.  A  sermon 
with  two  "finallys"  in  it  is  a  monstrosity 
and  a  plague.  Let  the  preacher  speak 
right  on  with  full  momentum  till  he  stops. 
On  railway  trains  it  may  be  necessary  on 
approaching  stations  to  whistle  "down- 
brakes,"  in  the  house  of  God  the  sermonic 
train  may  be  brought  to  an  unannounced 
and  instantaneous  stop  without  fatality. 


154   Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

Humor  is  a  rich  gift  of  Heaven  and 
fortunate  is  the  man  to  whom  it  has  been 
given  in  abundance.  A  httle  nonsense 
now  and  then  is  rehshed  by  all  sorts  of 
men,  including  preachers.  Pleasantries 
and  happy  hits  and  jokes  unstained  and 
stingless,  these  are  not  unbecoming  at 
proper  times  in  a  spiritual  leader  of  men. 
But  when  a  man  is  so  full  of  funny  stories 
that  his  stories  are  in  greater  demand  than 
his  sermons  it  is  time  for  him  to  reflect. 
The  ability  to  keep  a  dinner  party  in  a 
roar  is  not  to  be  despised  ;  neither  is  the 
sobriety  essential  to  influencing  men  in 
their  attitude  toward  noble  things  to  be 
neglected.  Many  a  man  in  trying  to  be  a 
jolly,  good  fellow  has  abdicated  his  position 
as  leader  of  the  higher  life  of  his  parish. 

There  is  one  sort  of  fun  in  which  a  min- 
ister should  never  indulge,  and  that  is  fun 
in  which  the  Bible  plays  the  part  of  the 
clown.  A  Bible  sentence  joked  about  be- 
comes a  withered  leaf  on  the  tree  of  life. 


Foolishness.  155 

The  preacher  can  never  use  it  for  the  heal- 
ing of  a  soul  in  whose  presence  he  has  done 
his  joking.  Shallow  and  Godless  men 
may  indulge  in  stories  and  conundrums  in 
which  the  words  of  saints  and  prophets  are 
prostituted  to  the  frivolous  task  of  pro- 
voking laughter,  but  this  is  hardly  proper 
for  a  man  who  is  dependent  on  these  very 
words  for  food  supplies  with  which  to  feed 
the  deepest  hungers  of  his  people.  The 
noblest  words  are  always  most  delicate  and 
lose  their  bloom  when  played  with  by  the 
tongues  of  punsters.  A  sentence  of  Christ 
may  be  so  stained  by  the  breath  of  laugh- 
ter and  so  wrapped  round  with  grotesque 
and  sordid  associations  as  to  lose  forever 
to  the  Christian  the  high  and  holy  music 
with  which  it  once  came  freighted  to  the 
soul.  Many  of  us  on  looking  through  our 
Bible  find  sentences  here  and  there  which 
some  joker  in  our  presence  once  twisted 
into  a  lower  meaning,  and  which  can  never 
be  to  us  all  they  might  have  been  had  they 


156    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

never  been  blasted  by  a  joke.  A  minister 
who  sports  with  the  Bible  in  the  homes  of 
his  people  need  not  be  surprised  to  find 
them  indifferent  to  its  beauties  when  he 
invites  them  to  study  it  on  Sunday. 

Men  who  shrink  from  the  profane 
handling  of  the  Scriptures  do  not  hesitate, 
in  many  cases,  to  deal  jocosely  with  noble 
feelings  and  lofty  thoughts.  There  is  a 
trick  of  passing  from  the  sublime  to  the 
ridiculous,  of  reading  frivolous  meanings 
into  stately  words,  of  giving  soaring  sen- 
tences a  downward  twist,  of  dragging 
down  high  things  to  low  levels,  which  is 
often  cultivated  because  of  the  hilarity 
produced  by  it  in  circles  incapable  of 
appreciating  higher  forms  of  wit,  but 
which  when  indulged  in  by  the  preacher 
is  one  of  the  most  ruinous  of  blunders. 
There  are  ministers  who  have  lost  all 
helpful  influence  over  the  men  who  have 
come  closest  to  them  solely  because  of 
this   fatal   habit  of   cheapening  the   most 


Foolishness,  157 

sacred  objects  of  thought  by  the  profane 
sportiveness  of  the  mind.  The  man  who 
jokes  straight  through  the  week  will  be 
suspected  of  joking  on  Sunday.  If  he 
constantly  reads  ridiculous  meanings  into 
sober  words  in  the  presence  of  those  who 
enjoy  his  intimate  acquaintance,  these 
persons  will  read  jocose  interpretations 
into  the  stateliest  periods  of  his  most 
earnest  sermons.  By  acting  the  fool  so 
constantly  when  out  of  the  pulpit  he  will 
seem  to  be  playing  the  same  rdle  even 
when  preaching  the  crucifixion  or  cele- 
brating the  last  supper.  Alas  for  the 
man  who  is  so  incorrigibly  and  irresistibly 
funny  that  even  in  the  pulpit  he  seems 
less  of  a  prophet  than  a  clown. 


158  Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 


XX. 

Meanness, 

A  MODERN  John  the  Baptist  has  con- 
densed his  message  to  his  generation  into 
the  pungent  exhortation  "  Quit  your 
meanness."  It  was  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  —  the  rehgious  leaders  of  their 
nation  —  upon  whom  the  ancient  John  the 
the  Baptist  laid  his  hand  with  heaviest 
pressure,  and  possibly  a  few  of  their  suc- 
cessors now  alive  would  receive  no  milder 
treatment  at  his  hands  if  he,  returning 
from  the  dead,  should  subject  them  to  the 
sifting,  searching  fires  of  eternal  right- 
eousness. When  a  minister  of  the  Gospel 
has  a  disposition  to  be  mean  he  has  un- 
paralleled  opportunities,  and  no  other  man 
is  so  shielded  from  rebuke.     His  ministe- 


Meanness.  159 

rial  brethren  hesitate  to  reprimand  him, 
his  people  mutter  condemnations  but  do 
not  strike.  How  to  reach  a  mean  man 
when  once  intrenched  in  a  pulpit  is  indeed 
a  problem. 

Meanness  is  of  divers  varieties  and 
shadings.  Sometimes  it  is  rough,  raw 
boorishness.  It  is  required  in  ministers 
that  a  man  be  found  a  gentleman,  but  the 
marks  of  gentle  breeding  are  occasionally 
lacking.  When  a  man  seated  in  full  view 
of  an  audience  holds  an  animated  con- 
versation with  his  neighbor  during  the 
rendering  of  an  anthem,  or  bustles  from 
place  to  place  attending  to  odds  and  ends 
of  business  when  he  ought  to  be  listen- 
ing to  the  solo,  or  fidgets  and  looks  bored 
while  another  man  is  preaching,  or  holds 
up  his  watch  and  shuts  it  with  a  snap 
which  sounds  like  a  cannon-shot  to  the 
man  who  has  not  yet  finished  his  address, 
he  shows  a  lack  of  thoughtfulness  and 
refinement  which    brings    a    blush   to  the 


i6o    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

cheeks  of  those  who  like  to  see  in  min- 
isters a  resemblance  to  that  supreme 
Gentleman  whose  messengers  they  are. 

This  disregard  of  the  rights  of  others 
often  takes  appalling  forms.  There  are 
ministers  who  have  no  conscience  in  their 
treatment  of  the  men  who  follow  them  on 
a  program.  If  given  the  chance  to  speak 
first  they  take  all  the  time  there  is,  leaving 
those  who  come  after  them  the  raveled 
fragment  of  a  ruined  hour.  A  mental 
state  capable  of  such  conduct  deserves 
the  investigation  of  the  psychologists. 
Why  the  work  of  preaching  the  Gospel 
should  develop  in  certain  minds  the  dis- 
position of  a  brigand,  and  break  down  all 
fine  scruples  of  equity  and  honor,  is  one 
of  the  problems  for  the  new  century. 
The  facts  are  clear  and  incontrovertible. 
There  are  men  of  intelligence  and  piety 
who  when  asked  to  go  with  an  audience 
one  half  hour  will  invariably  go  with  it 
twain ;  who  when  asked  to  divide  an  hour 


Meanness.  i6i 

with  a  brother  minister  will  greedily  de- 
vour the  first  half  of  it  and  take  a  huge 
bite  out  of  the  second ;  who  will  steal 
every  moment  they  can  wrap  their  tongue 
around,  and  then  apologize  to  their  out- 
raged victim  with  the  blandest  of  smiles, 
"  I  did  not  realize  how  long  I  was  speak- 
ing ! "  A  Christian  worker  who  has  had 
experience  in  the  making  of  programs  is 
inclined  to  think  that  if  five  speakers  are 
wanted  to  grace  an  important  occasion  it 
would  be  safer  to  trust  five  men  chosen 
at  random  from  the  penitentiary  to  do 
unto  one  another  in  the  division  of  time 
the  thing  that  is  right,  than  five  eloquent 
clergymen  taken  from  as  many  Christian 
pulpits.  This  reckless  overriding  of  all  the 
proprieties  and  restraints  is  indulged  in 
sometimes  by  men  whose  praise  is  in  many 
churches,  but  the  mxore  conspicuous  the 
offender  the  more  lamentable  the  trans- 
gression. 

Men   who    would    not    stoop    to    filch 


1 62    Qtiiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

moments  have  been  known  to  steal  peo- 
ple. Denominationalism  has  flooded  the 
world  with  blessings,  but  by  intensifying 
rivalry  among  religious  bodies  it  has  led 
to  evils  not  a  few.  The  undue  multiplica- 
tion of  churches  within  narrow  boundaries 
sets  ministers  into  competition  with  one 
another,  and  a  sensitive  man  of  honor 
sometimes  finds  himself  outdistanced  by 
a  clerical  rogue  who  uses  underhanded 
methods  to  swell  the  number  of  his  flock. 
Ecclesiastical  fences  are  no  longer  high 
and  some  men  are  adepts  in  the  knack  of 
inducing  sheep  to  jump  from  one  field 
into  another.  Sometimes  the  work  of 
proselyting  is  carried  on  slyly  and  with 
great  adroitness,  at  other  times  it  is  prose- 
cuted with  boldness  in  the  full  glare  of 
noon.  Even  men  of  dignity  and  un- 
doubted piety  have  engaged  in  the  unhal- 
lowed business,  displaying  among  many 
graces  of  the  spirit  the  strategy  of  the 
kidnapper  and   the   cunning   of   the   fox. 


Meanness.  163 

But  whenever  and  wherever  and  however 
and  by  whomsoever  the  work  of  building 
up  one  church  by  the  tearing  down  of 
another  is  attempted  the  minister  who 
lends  a  hand  is  guilty  of  one  of  the  most 
contemptible  and  dastardly  of  all  minis- 
terial sins.  What  shall  it  profit  a  man  to 
build  up  his  church  membership  and  lose 
his  own  soul  ? 

This  lack  of  principle  sometimes  crops 
out  in  a  wanton  disregard  of  the  sacred- 
ness  of  a  promise.  The  word  of  a  minis- 
ter should  be  as  binding  as  his  bond. 
Whatever  he  says  he  will  do  he  should 
perform.  Wherever  he  promises  to  go  he 
ought  to  go.  If  the  men  who  stand  in 
the  community  as  the  .anointed  priests  of 
conscientiousness  and  good  faith  say  one 
thing  and  do  another,  to  many  men  the 
pillared  firmament  will  seem  only  rotten- 
ness and  earth's  base  built  on  stubble. 
A  minister  of  the  Gospel  is  under  ever- 
lasting obligations  to  be  a  man  of  his 
word. 


164    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

But  it  is  at  this,  crucial  point  that  an 
occasional  minister  falls.  There  are  men 
who  are  swift  to  promise  and  slow  to 
fulfill.  Invitations  are  accepted  and  then 
forgotten.  Engagements  are  entered  into 
only  to  be  broken.  With  smiling  assur- 
ances and  fatal  alacrity  more  work  is 
promised  than  can  possibly  be  performed. 
It  is  men  of  shining  gifts  who  are  most 
likely  to  be  thus  ensnared.  Because 
talented  they  are  incessantly  and  urgently 
importuned  to  give  their  time  and  strength 
to  plausible  and  needy  suitors.  Because 
thus  pressed  they  say,  "  Yes."  After  the 
invitation  has  been  accepted  there  comes 
a  new  invitation,  and  this,  for  the  moment 
more  attractive  than  the  first,  crowds  out 
its  predecessor  only  to  be  shoved  aside  by 
a  third  invitation  yet  to  come.  Not  a 
thought  is  given  to  the  havoc  thus  wrought 
at  the  eleventh  hour  in  the  programs  of 
innocent  people  who  supposed  it  was  safe 
to  rely  upon  the  promise  of  a  clergyman ; 


Meanness.  165 

not  a  tear  is  shed  over  the  mortification 
and  ache  of  disappointed  hearts.  Fires 
of  resentment  are  thus  sometimes  kindled 
in  which  one's  primal  faith  in  human 
nature  is  in  danger  of  being  consumed. 
One  man  of  this  stamp  does  more  to  un- 
dermine confidence  in  Christianity  and  its 
defenders  than  the  arguments  of  a  legion 
of  infidels.  His  sermons  will  be  but 
sounding  brass  and  clanging  cymbal  to 
every  man  with  whom  he  has  dealt  un- 
fairly or  to  whom  the  story  of  his  perfidy 
has  been  brought. 

When  a  minister  gives  his  promise  let 
him  keep  it.  Action  must  evermore  keep 
pace  with  word.  An  engagement  once 
made  should  be  scrupulously  fulfilled 
unless  the  Lord  God  Almighty  raises 
up  obstacles  which  no  human  ingenuity 
or  strength  can  possibly  surmount.  If  a 
minister  cannot  be  a  saint  or  hero,  he  can 
at  least  be  decent. 


1 66    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 


XXI. 

Mannerisms, 

Every  man  must  have  a  manner  and 
when  the  manner  is  peculiar  to  himself  it 
becomes  a  mannerism.  Not  every  man- 
nerism is  offensive.  There  are  tricks  of 
gesture  and  of  speech  which  because  of 
their  very  oddity  have  a  pleasing  fascina- 
tion, and  seem  to  be  a  fitting  and  complet- 
ing part  of  a  man's  own  personality.  They 
give  us  in  fuller  measure  the  aroma  of  his 
soul.  But  mannerisms  as  a  rule  are  verita- 
ble dragons  which  throwing  themselves 
between  the  preacher  and  his  hearers  must 
be  warred  against  and  slain.  Eternal  vigi- 
lance is  the  price  the  man  of  God  must 
pay  for  deliverance  from  this  plague  of 
pulpit  pests. 


Mannerisms.  167 

There  is  scarcely  an  organ  of  the  body 
which  will  not  enter  into  conspiracy  to 
cripple  the  minister  in  his  work.  His  eyes 
may  roam  above  his  hearers*  heads  or  dart 
periodically  toward  the  floor,  or  hang  them- 
selves to  a  peg  in  one  corner  of  the  room, 
or  shut  themselves  up  as  if  afraid  of  the 
light,  or  stare  steadfastly  into  vacancy  like 
the  eyes  of  Macbeth  on  beholding  the  dag- 
ger, refusing  to  do  what  all  sane  eyes  are 
intended  to  do  —  look  an  audience  in  the 
face.  His  nose,  if  unregenerate,  may  sniff 
and  snort,  punctuating  the  glad  tidings  of 
great  joy  with  indescribable  sounds  which 
are  hardly  fit  music  for  the  House  of  the 
Lord.  His  face  may  break  loose  from  all 
restraint  and  indulge  in  grimaces  wonder- 
ful to  see.  It  may  look  solemn  as  death 
when  there  is  no  reason  for  solemnity, 
and  wrathful  when  there  is  no  call  for 
indignation,  and  amused  when  there  is  no 
justification  for  mirth,  and  it  may  twist 
itself  into  contortions  which  if  reproduced 


1 68    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

by  the  kinetoscope  would  furnish  inter- 
esting diversion  for  the  ungodly.  Or 
his  entire  head  may  become  unmanage- 
able, wagging  and  wabbling,  jerking  and 
bobbing,  as  though  ideas  are  nails  which 
must  be  driven  in  by  the  skull  used  as 
a  mallet.  The  hands  also  may  become 
unruly,  cutting  capers  behind  their  owner's 
back,  fumbling  and  twitching,  grasping  and 
groping,  expending  nervous  energy  which 
ought  to  be  poured  into  the  voice.  Or 
bolder  in  action  they  may  gambol  inces- 
santly before  the  eyes  of  the  congregation, 
doubling  themselves  into  fists  when  the 
sermon  is  breathing  the  spirit  of  peace  or 
pounding  the  unoffending  pulpit  until  the 
exhibition  of  physical  vigor  makes  a  deeper 
impression  than  the  unfolding  of  the  spirit- 
ual idea.  Some  men  get  more  dust  out  of 
the  pulpit  cushion  than  light  out  of  the 
text.  The  legs  may  prove  recreant  to 
their  trust.  They  may  bend  at  the  knee 
at  every  downward  gesture  of  the  arm,  or 


Mannerisms.  169 

one  leg  may  run  away  from  the  other  and 
lounge  about  in  slovenly  attitudes.  The 
very  toes  may  behave  unseemly,  lifting 
the  preacher  up  and  down,  increasing  and 
shortening  his  stature,  giving  the  congre- 
gation the  impression  of  a  man  unstable  in 
all  his  ways.  As  there  are  kickers  in  the 
pews  so  are  there  men  who  kick  in  the  pul- 
pit. To  some  ministers  the  most  effective 
of  all  exclamation  points  are  those  made 
by  the  boot. 

But  no  matter  what  absurdities  and 
crudities  a  minister's  body  may  be  guilty 
of,  these  can  be  endured  providing  the  good 
man  can  manage  his  mouth.  "Whoso 
keepeth  his  mouth  and  his  tongue  keepeth 
his  soul  from  troubles,"  and  also  saves  his 
congregation  from  a  multitude  of  woes. 
If  a  man  clears  his  throat  at  the  end  of 
every  fifth  sentence  there  will  be  persons 
in  his  congregation  who  will  want  to  clear 
it  out  of  the  pulpit  altogether.  If  he  hems 
and  haws  whenever  an  idea  gets  away  from 


170   Quiet  Hints  to   Growing  Preachers. 

him  he  irritates  both  his  throat  and  the 
nerves  of  his  people.  If  he  yells  at  the 
top  of  his  voice  in  the  utterance  of  feeble 
ideas  he  is  a  nuisance  which  ought  to  be 
abated.  When  finely  organized  Christian 
men  and  women  cannot  attend  church  with- 
out receiving  a  headache  from  the  sten- 
torian tones  of  the  preacher  it  would  seem 
that  yelling,  like  other  forms  of  sin,  ought 
to  be  made  a  cause  for  church  discipline. 
If  a  congregation  were  a  colossus  to  be  at- 
tacked by  rhetorical  bludgeons,  or  a 
mammoth  baby  to  be  tickled  by  vocal 
pyrotechnics,  or  a  monster  to  be  tricked 
and  trapped  by  oratorical  devices,  yelling 
might  not  be  without  justification  :  but  as 
a  congregation  is  nothing  but  a  big,  sensi- 
ble man  waiting  to  be  spoken  to  by  a  little 
man  in  the  pulpit,  anything  in  the  nature 
of  a  howl  from  his  lips  is  as  vulgar  as  it  is 
absurd. 

But  a  yell  is  scarcely  worse  than  a  tone. 
A  tone  is  a  clerical  whine,  a  pulpit  twang, 


Mannerisms.  i  J  i 

an  oily,  sanctimonious,  vocal  monstrosity. 
A  tone  is  cant  vocalized.  It  is  affectation 
coined  into  breath.  It  is  the  most  disgust- 
ing sound  which  the  universe  emits.  It  is 
better  that  a  minister  should  be  afflicted 
with  yellow  fever  than  with  a  tone.  With 
the  yellow  fever  he  might  die.  Some  min- 
isters have  several  tones,  one  for  the 
prayer,  one  for  the  Scripture,  one  for  the 
sermon,  and  still  another  for  religious  con- 
versation. They  talk  like  Mr.  Hyde  in 
the  pulpit  and  like  Dr.  Jekyl  at  the  foot 
of  the  pulpit  stairs. 

"  O  for  a  looking-glass  for  the  voice !  " 
This  has  been  the  cry  through  the  cen- 
turies, and  in  the  fullness  of  time  there 
came  the  phonograph.  What  part  in  the 
evolution  of  the  clergy  this  little  instru- 
ment shall  play  it  is  too  early  to  declare. 
But  the  courage  and  fidelity  of  the  phono- 
graph prove  that  it  is  an  angel  of  the 
Lord.  Before  its  arrival  no  preacher 
could  hear  himself  as  others  heard  him, 


172    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

This  metallic  angel  insists  on  telling  the 
whole  truth  without  the  suppression  of  a 
vocal  jot  or  tittle.  If  the  minister  smacks 
his  lips  at  the  end  of  paragraphs  especially 
delicious,  if  he  clips  his  "ings"  or  hisses 
his  "  esses,"  if  he  smoothers  his  vowels  or 
magnifies  his  consonants,  if  he  meters  his 
sentences  or  builds  a  sing-song  into  his 
climaxes,  the  faithful  phonograph  will 
tell  the  round  unvarnished  story,  and  it 
will  tell  it  without  apology  or  compunction. 
The  story  may  bring  bitter  tears,  but  if 
they  lead  unto  repentance  the  world  will 
find  another  man  willing  to  preach  the 
Gospel  in  the  tones  in  which  men  are  born. 
Probably  no  defect  of  public  speech  is 
so  common  and  so  difficult  to  cure  as  the 
habit  of  monotony.  There  is  a  monotony 
of  pitch,  another  of  force,  another  of  rate, 
another  of  inflection,  another  of  emphasis, 
another  of  cadence,  and  the  speaker  who  is 
not  in  any  way  monotonous  is  one  man 
picked  out  of  ten  thousand, 


Mannerisms.  173 

To  Hercules  undying  honor  has  been 
given  because  he  accomplished  twelve 
stupendous  labors ;  but  the  minister  who 
can  meet  and  conquer  all  the  lions,  boars, 
and  hydras  which  infest  the  road  which 
leads  to  effective  speaking  is  a  mightier 
hero  than  the  laureled  demi-god  of  Greece. 


174   Qn'iet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 


XXII. 

^^Thy  Speech  Bewrayeth  Thee.'' 

Discontent  with  theological  seminaries 
is  one  of  the  conspicuous  phenomena  of 
our  time.  The  discontent  expresses  itself 
often  in  blind  and  vindictive  ways,  and 
men  and  methods  are  struck  at  which 
merit  only  praise.  But  when  congrega- 
tions prefer  men  —  as  they  often  do  —  on 
whom  the  Seminary  has  not  left  its  mark, 
it  is  not  because  congregations  are  perverse 
or  stupid,  but  because  they  instinctively 
feel  a  difference  in  men  which,  however 
difficult  to  define,  is  no  less  real  and  con- 
trolling. In  some  cases  it  is  sheer  native 
ability  which  more  than  compensates  for 
lack  of  scholastic  straining,  but  in  more 
instances  it  is  a  difference  in  speech  which 


*'  Thy  Speech  Bewray eth   Thee.''    175 

causes  one  man  to  be  chosen  and  the  other 
left. 

The  greatest  danger  to  which  a  young 
man  is  subjected  in  the  Seminary,  is  not, 
as  many  timid  folks  imagine,  heretical  in- 
terpretations of  the  Scriptures  but  a  style 
of  language  which  the  plain  people  do  not 
understand.  The  Seminary  is  a  world  of 
itself,  and  in  this  little  world  a  dialect  is 
spoken  which  one  does  not  hear  on  the 
streets.  The  books  which  the  student 
reads  are  written  either  in  German  or 
French,  or  in  EngHsh  almost  as  "  foreign  " 
as  either.  The  lectures  to  which  he  lis- 
tens are  couched  in  terms  which,  however 
expressive  and  delicious  to  the  trained 
scholar,  have  little  meaning  to  the  un- 
lettered. No  part  of  a  man  is  more 
sensitive  to  his  surroundings  than  his 
vocabulary,  and  one  naturally  speaks  in 
the  language  with  which  his  ears  and 
eyes  are  most  familiar.  Unconsciously  to 
himself  the  student  acquires  a  vocabulary 


1/6    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

and  a  diction  totally  different  from  those 
which  belonged  to  him  in  earlier  years, 
and  which  will  be  a  serious  barrier  to  him 
in  his  efforts  to  reach  the  hearts  of  men. 
Many  a  man  has  come  from  the  seminary 
with  his  vocabulary  so  Latinized,  and  his 
style  so  Germanized,  that  though  his 
heart  still  beat  in  sympathy  with  the 
common  people  he  seemed  to  them  a 
foreigner  or  pedant. 

The  first  essential  of  effective  preach- 
ing is  that  every  man  shall  hear  it  in  the 
language  in  which  he  himself  was  born. 
No  Pentecost s  have  ever  been,  or  can  ever 
be  where  this  condition  is  lacking.  No 
man  truly  preaches  who  does  not  reach  the 
heart,  and  language  is  the  instrument  by 
which  the  heart  is  reached.  Learning  is 
good,  but  it  is  not  essential.  People  care 
nothing  for  learning  in  preachers  unless 
much  else  goes  along  with  it.  What  is 
demanded  is  a  man  capable  of  communi- 
cating thought  and  feeling.    If  the  preacher 


"  Thy  Speech  Bewray eth   Thee''    177 

throws  over  his  ideas  thick  verbal  veils, 
and  muffles  his  feelings  in  sentences  which 
quench  their  heat,  the  congregation  may 
call  him  learned  but  it  will  not  care  to 
hear  him  preach. 

Next  to  the  baptism  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
the  most  indispensable  gift  for  every 
American  preacher  is  a  mastery  of  the 
English  tongue.  No  time  should  be  be- 
grudged spent  in  the  perfecting  of  the 
preacher's  style.  Language  is  the  tool' 
with  which  he  does  his  work,  and  it  is  a 
tool  which  demands  a  deal  of  toil.  Any 
style  is  good  which  does  its  work.  The 
work  of  the  preacher  is  to  make  glorious 
to  the  hearts  of  men  the  facts  and  princi- 
ples of  revelation  in  order  that  by  this 
vision  they  may  be  impelled  to  a  closer 
walk  with  God.  The  first  thing  that  a 
preacher  must  demand  of  himself  is  that 
he  shall  be  understood.  Unless  he  is 
understood  all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of 
spirit.     His    words    should    be    clear    as 


c/ 


1/8    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

crystal  and  his  sentences  should  shed  light. 
His  paragraphs  should  cut  like  swords  and 
flash  like  torches.  His  language  should 
be  what  John  Milton  said  the  best  poetry 
ought  to  be,  simple,  sensuous  and  impas- 
sioned. The  sermon  should  be  free  from 
opaque  and  clouded  phrases,  and  should 
abound  in  "  words  which  the  heart  knows." 
The  preacher's  aim  is  to  move  the  will. 
To  do  this  he  must  stir  the  emotions. 
His  language  therefore  must  be  the  lan- 
guage of  the  conscience  and  the  heart. 
His  style  must  be  pedestrian.  It  must  fit 
down  close  around  the  skins  of  things.  If 
he  weights  his  sermons  with  technical  and 
abstract  terms  he  becomes  insufferably 
tedious  and  heavy.  Hundreds  of  good 
men  are  failing  in  the  pulpit  to-day  because 
handicapped  by  their  language. 

Let  every  man  who  wishes  to  preach 
with  conquering  power  work  in  season  and 
out  of  season  on  his  style.  It  is  a  life- 
long enterprise  and  no  other  labor  is  more 


"  Thy  Speech  Bewray eth    Thee''    179 

profitably  expended.   The  advice  of  Charles 
Lamb  to  Coleridge,  "  cultivate  simplicity  " 
is  almost  as  important  for  the  preacher  as 
any   statement    in    the    Sermon   on    the 
Mount.     Preachers  as  a  rule  are  not  simple 
enough.     They  imagine  that  deep  thought  ^ 
and    big   words    must   go   together.      Let 
them    read    the   first    chapter    of    John's 
Gospel.     No  profounder  piece  of  composi- 
tion was  ever  written,  and  most  of  it  is 
in  monosyllables.     "All  of  your  sermons       ^ 
should  be  of   the  simplest,"   said    Martin 
Luther   to   a    growing   preacher,    and    all 
successful    preachers  have  acted  on    that 
advice.      Bookish    words    which   have   not 
been  domesticated  in    the    speech  of   the 
average  member  of  the  congregation  ought 
to  be  avoided.     The  great  words  are  nearly 
all  short  words,  God  and  man,  heaven  and 
home,  wife  and   child,  life  and  love,  faith 
and  hope,   joy  and  grief,  pain   and  death, 
all    these   and  a  hundred    Hke  them  drop 
easily  from  the  tongue.     The  words  which 


i8o   Quiet  Hints  to   Growing  Preachers. 

lovers  know  and  which  mothers  speak  in 
soothing  and  instructing  Httle  children, 
and  which  fathers  whisper  in  the  chamber 
of  death  and  sob  beside  the  grave,  and 
which  all  men  use  in  carrying  on  the  life 
and  business  of  the  world,  are  all  simple 
words,  and  these  are  the  words  which 
should  be  most  frequent  on  the  preacher's 
lips.  These  w^ords  are  stained  through 
and  through  with  the  heart  experiences  of 
many  generations.  They  carry  with  them 
a  light  and  fragrance  which  fill  all  the 
room  in  which  they  are  spoken. 

"  He  to  whom  the  world's  heart  warms 
Must  speak  in  wholesome,  home-bred  words." 

Foolish  is  the  man  who  discards  all  these 
for  the  frigid  patois  of  the  latest  literary 
or  scientific  school. 

But  a  clear  and  moving  style  is  not  to 
be  had  for  the  asking.  It  is  an  attainment 
bought  by  most  men  by  agony  and  sweat 
of  blood.  A  man  must  feed  his  vocabulary 
constantly   or   it   will   lose  its  vigor    and 


"  Thy  Speech  Bewray eth   Thee. "    1 8 1 

ardor.  The  vocabulary  of  a  minister  is 
subjected  to  a  tremendous  wear  and  tear 
which  soon  leaves  it  impoverished  unless 
constantly  replenished.  A  preacher's  style 
should  be  full  of  color  and  music.  Faded 
and  threadbare  language  is  not  fit  rai- 
ment for  the  message  of  the  king.  Too 
many  preachers  use  a  language  which  is 
colorless  and  tasteless  and  dead.  There 
are  no  vivid  adjectives,  no  picturesque 
phrases,  no  paragi'aphs  which  give  fresh 
splendor  to  familiar  ideas.  A  minister 
must  deal  constantly  with  moral  common- 
places, but  these  become  irksome  and  re- 
volting unless  expressed  in  language  which 
has  on  it  the  dew  of  the  morning.  Love 
must  always  say  the  same  things,  but  it 
never  repeats  itself. 

How  can  a  man  freshen  and  enrich  his 
style  .?  Read  and  reread  the  Bible  and 
Shakespeare  and  Defoe  and  Swift  and 
Bunyan  and  Tennyson,  for  all  of  these 
have  a  genius  for  pouring  the  water  of  life 


1 82    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

into  the  clay  jugs  of  Saxon  speech.  But 
reading  is  not  enough.  A  man  must  him- 
self be  simple  and  true.  Schopenhauer 
is  right  in  thinking  that  "style  is  the 
physiognomy  of  the  mind,  and  a  safer 
index  to  character  than  the  face."  What- 
ever tones  up  the  spirit  and  cleanses  and 
sweetens  the  heart  imparts  straightfor- 
wardness and  vigor  and  bloom  to  a  man's 
speech.  The  purest,  noblest  English  ever 
written  is  that  of  our  King  James's  Bible. 
Its  unfading  glory  is  no  mystery  to  those 
who  have  come  to  know  the  beautiful  and 
saintly  soul  of  William  Tyndale. 


Books  and  Reading.  183 


XXIII. 

Books  and  Reading, 

There  are  preachers  who  would  be 
stronger  in  their  ministry  if  they  read 
fewer  books.  There  is  every  provocation 
to  read  too  much.  Books  are  numerous 
and  cheap  and  no  other  working  man  in 
the  town  has  so  many  hours  in  a  week 
which  can  be  given  to  reading  as  the  min- 
ister. Even  if  he  had  no  taste  for  reading 
he  would  be  driven  to  it  by  the  nagging 
question  hurled    at  him   from   every  side, 

"Have    you    read    .? "     A   man  who 

values  a  reputation  for  being  up  with  the 
times  hesitates  to  say  "No"  more  than 
half  the  times  the  question  is  asked  him. 
Moreover  it  is  pleasant  to  talk  about 
books.       Minister   and    people   can    come 


184    Quiet  Hints  to  Grozving  Preachers. 

together  on  common  ground  in  the  books 
they  have  all  been  reading.  But  a  parish 
gulps  down  an  enormous  amount  of  printed 
pabulum  in  a  calendar  year,  and  the  min- 
ister who  tries  to  read  everything  his 
people  are  reading  is  in  danger  of  fatty 
degeneration  of  the  mind.  When  he  passes 
from  his  parish  into  the  circle  of  his  min- 
isterial brethren  he  is  pelted  with  another 
set  of  interrogations  which  call  for  ac- 
quaintance with  an  entirely  different  set 
of  books.  His  brethren  have  read  the 
last  six  volumes  from  Germany  and  the 
latest  twelve  from  England  and  two  or 
three  from  France,  and  the  ambitious  man, 
anticipating  the  discussion  which  is  com- 
ing has  also  read  them  every  one.  A 
minister  is  thus  spurred  on  by  the  world, 
the  flesh,  the  devil,  and  the  saints  to  swal- 
low a  larger  mass  of  printed  material  than 
his  mental  stomach  can  digest. 

A  loud,  long  warning  should  be  sounded 
against  the  intemperate  use  of  books.      It 


Books  and  Reading.  185 

is  commonly  taken  for  granted  that  read- 
ing is  of  necessity  a  blessing ;  not  infre- 
quently it  is  a  curse.  A  reader  of  many 
books  is  counted  wise  :  his  reading  may 
make  him  a  fool.  Many  a  man  would  be 
saner,  stronger,  more  effective  in  his  work 
had  he  read  but  a  fraction  of  the  books 
to  which  he  has  given  strength  and  time. 
This  habit  of  omnivorous  reading  begets 
mental  habits  which  are  blighting  to  the 
preacher's  work.  Men  addicted  to  it  often 
become  painfully  superficial.  By  the  con- 
stant skimming  of  ephemeral  volumes  they 
become  incapable  of  constructive  and 
continuous  thought.  They  are  men  of 
thoughts  but  not  of  thought.  To  string 
thoughts  together  is  one  thing,  to  develop 
a  thought  is  another.  Men  best  versed 
in  the  thoughts  of  other  men  may  become 
shallow  in  their  own. 

This  superficiality  sometimes  displays 
itself  in  a  mania  for  quotation.  Every 
book  is  pounced  upon  for  the  sake  of  the 


1 86   Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

homiletic  material  it  contains  and  this  is 
thrown  into  the  sermon  as  a  substitute  for 
thinking  which  the  preacher  should  have 
done.  By  the  skillful  weaving  together 
of  striking  sentences  from  a  group  of 
miscellaneous  writers  a  preacher  may  gain 
among  ignorant  people  a  reputation  for 
vast  and  varied  learning,  but  to  the  dis- 
cerning he  is  not  so  learned  as  he  seems. 
A  sermonic  crazy-quilt  of  purple  patches 
may  furnish  entertainment  and  even  in- 
struction for  a  season,  but  preaching  such 
as  this  does  not  furnish  the  solid  and 
nutritious  food  which  growing  souls  de- 
mand. If  *' preaching  is  the  bringing  of 
truth  through  personality  "  then  the  inces- 
sant lugging  in  of  the  ideas  of  other  men 
must  be  a  destructive  if  not  fatal  blunder ; 
for  it  must  of  necessity  check  the  flow 
of  the  preacher's  soul  upon  the  hearts  of 
those  who  hear  him.  Men  are  best  helped 
not  by  being  told  what  the  preacher  has 
been  reading,  but    by  having  poured  OTit 


Books  and  Reading.  187 

upon  them  the  hopes  and  convictions 
which  have  become  so  vital  in  his  heart 
as  to  shape  themselves  into  a  message 
which  must  forthwith  be  uttered. 

Reading  makes  a  full  man  and  it  may 
fill  him  to  his  undoing.  One  may  be  so 
full  as  to  become  incapable  of  effective 
utterance.  Men  sometimes  degenerate 
as  preachers  in  proportion  to  their  advance 
in  the  realm  of  learning.  While  building 
increasingly  spacious  barns  in  which  to 
store  their  sermonic  goods  a  mental  paral- 
ysis steals  upon  them,  and  in  the  day  of 
plenty  they  find  themselves  unable  to  feed 
the  souls  entrusted  to  their  keeping.  The 
constant  dumping  of  miscellaneous  mate- 
rial into  the  mind  breaks  down  the  powers 
of  assimilation,  and  leaves  the  gormand  a 
mental  wreck.  The  juices  of  the  mind 
dry  up,  and  instead  of  a  man  behind  the 
pulpit  there  is  only  a  library  bound  in 
human  skin.  No  human  being  can  be  so 
-Stale  and  flat  and  unprofitable  as  a  man 


1 88    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

who  has  lived  too  exclusively  with  books. 
A  sermon  which  smells  of  the  lamp  can 
be  endured  but  never  enjoyed. 

Excessive  reading  may  ruin  a  man  as  a 
preacher  and  also  as  a  pastor.  The  love 
of  books  like  the  love  of  wine  may  grow 
until  it  becomes  a  consuming  fire  in  which 
all  obligations  are  burnt  to  ashes.  When 
a  minister  neglects  the  sick  and  dying, 
when  he  ignores  the  stranger  and  the  man 
in  need  of  counsel,  when  he  goes  toward 
his  people  with  repining  and  returns  to 
his  books  with  a  sigh  of  relief  he  has 
entered  on  the  road  which  leads  down  to 
the  chambers  of  death.  For  it  is  his 
spiritual  manhood  which  is  in  process  of 
disintegration.  He  is  losing  the  temper 
without  which  no  man  can  be  a  true  ser- 
vant of  Christ.  Such  a  man  becomes  in- 
creasingly fastidious,  dainty  and  critical. 
The  more  he  reads  the  less  he  knows  and 
so  he  reads  still  more.  With  accumulat- 
ing  knowledge   comes  a  loftier  standard. 


Books  and  Reading.  189 

This  higher  standard  renders  him  increas- 
ingly impatient  with  himself  and  especially 
with  his  brethren.  He  becomes  unsympa- 
thetic, censorious,  conceited.  He  meas- 
ures every  man  by  his  scholastic  and 
literary  yardstick.  Better  men  than  he 
who  have  a  different  kind  of  knowledge 
obtained  by  other  methods  become  to  him 
only  objects  of  pity  or  derision.  No  pride 
can  be  more  scornful  and  cruel  than  the 
pride  of  a  man  who  has  lived  with  his 
books  until  he  has  lost  his  sympathy  with 
men.  But  with  all  his  learning  he  is 
wretched  and  miserable  and  poor  and 
blind  and  naked.  "  Killed  by  his  books  " 
would  be  an  epitaph  fitting  for  the  tomb- 
stone of  many  a  ruined  prophet  of  the 
Lord. 

But  books  must  not  be  undervalued. 
Alas  for  the  congregation  whose  minister 
has  ceased  to  read.  Men  who  would  grow 
must  be  diligent  students  of  the  best 
books.     They  will  not  read  every  book  of 


1 90    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

which  one  hundred  thousand  copies  may 
be  sold  but  will  shut  themselves  up  with 
the  supreme  books,  the  literature  of  power. 
These  books  will  be  reread  many  times. 
Benjamin  Jewett  in  one  of  his  letters 
says  he  had  just  completed  the  fiftieth 
reading  of  Boswell's  Johnson.  It  is  not 
advisable  to  give  exclusive  attention  to 
technical  studies  even  though  they  relate 
to  the  Bible.  The  work  of  tracing  ten- 
dencies, and  spotting  interpolations,  and 
detecting  redactors  is  interesting  but  de- 
bilitating. Let  the  man  of  the  pulpit  read 
poetry  for  language  and  vision,  biography 
for  impulse  and  comfort,  history  for  pro- 
portion and  perspective,  and  the  Bible  for 
fire.  He  who  keeps  constant  company 
with  the  kings  and  queens  of  human 
thought  will  have  a  keenness  of  insight, 
a  delicacy  of  touch,  and  an  energy  of  per- 
suasion which  his  indolent,  newspaper- 
magazine-novel  reading  brother  may  envy 
and  marvel  at  but  never  possess. 


Near  to  Men  Near  to  God.       191 


XXIV. 

Near  to  Men  Near  to  God, 

It  is  not  good  for  a  man  to  live  alone. 
He  belongs  to  humanity  and  only  in  close 
relation  with  his  fellows  does  he  realize 
the  Hfe  for  which  he  was  created.  The 
highest  virtues  and  sweetest  graces  grow 
only  in  an  atmosphere  made  warm  by 
human  fellowship.  Isolation,  like  a  blight- 
ing frost,  nips  spiritual  aspirations  in  the 
bud.  A  man  may  be  a  pagan  alone,  he 
cannot  be  a  Christian.  It  is  where  two  or 
three  are  together  that  Christianity  prom- 
ises a  life  which  is  divine. 

A  preacher  of  Christianity  must  live  as 
close  as  possible  to  men.  Isolation  to  him 
is  fatal.  If  he  has  a  disposition  which 
shrinks  from  the  society  of  others  his  dis- 


192    Quiet  Hi  Jits  to  Growing'  Preachers, 

position  must  be  born  again.  Young  men 
in  whom  the  literary  instinct  is  strong  and 
the  literary  ambition  stronger  still,  some- 
times enter  the  ministry  determined  to  be 
strong  —  as  they  say  —  in  the  pulpit,  and 
suppose  that  it  is  by  the  constant  poring 
over  learned  volumes  that  pulpit  greatness 
can  be  achieved.  Shutting  themselves  up 
in  their  study  they  proceed  to  dig  in  a 
dozen  different  fields  of  learning,  leaving 
untouched  the  very  field  in  which  the 
pearl  of  great  price  is  hid.  It  is  with  re- 
luctance that  they  lay  aside  their  books  to 
go  among  their  people  and  every  hour 
given  to  parochial  visitation  is  bitterly  be- 
grudged. Among  their  books  they  are 
serene  and  happy :  among  God's  children 
they  are  restless  and  forlorn.  By  pam- 
pering this  disposition  a  man  may  come  at 
last  to  have  a  horror  of  entering  the  homes 
of  his  people  and  may  secretly  despise  the 
very  souls  he  is  sent  into  the  world  to  love. 
Knowing  men  is  the  preacher's  first  and 


Near  to  Men  Near  to  God.       193 

most  important  business.  To  know  them 
he  must  be  with  them.  It  is  not  enough 
to  know  man,  he  must  know  men.  He 
can  study  man  in  his  hbrary  but  he  must 
study  men  in  his  parish.  It  is  one  thing 
to  know  human  nature  as  portrayed  in 
books  and  another  thing  to  know  it  at 
first  hand.  Europe  in  books  is  not  more 
different  from  the  Europe  which  the  tour- 
ist sees  and  hears  and  feels  than  is  the 
man  whom  we  read  about  different  from 
the  man  whom  we  meet  in  the  streets.  It 
is  the  man  in  the  street  whom  the  preacher 
must  know,  and  if  he  does  not  know  him 
no  other  sort  of  knowledge  will  make  him 
a  successful  preacher.  There  are  two 
volumes  to  which  a  preacher  must  give  his 
days  and  nights,  his  Bible  and  his  parish. 
A  knowledge  of  the  second  is  not  a  whit 
less  important  than  is  a  mastery  of  the  first. 
According  to  the  New  Testament  the 
minister  is  a  servant.  His  rank  in  the 
kingdom  is  determined  by  his  proficiency 


194    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

in  service.  A  man  who  desires  to  be 
"great  "  in  the  pulpit  must  be  first  of  all 
a  minister,  and  if  he  has  an  ambition  to  be 
chief  he  must  be  the  servant  of  all.  If  a 
preacher  really  deserves  to  serve  his 
people  he  will  not  count  time  lost  which  is 
spent  in  their  company.  The  closer  he 
comes  to  them  the  larger  his  opportunity  to 
give  them  what  they  need.  What  they  are 
fearing  and  hoping,  feeling  and  thinking, 
enjoying  and  suffering,  loving  and  hating, 
reading  and  dreaming,  all  this  can  become 
known  to  him  only  as  he  comes  into  contact 
with  them,  and  to  know  these  things  is 
more  important  than  to  know  nine-tenths 
of  all  the  books  can  teach.  It  is  because 
men  love  to  luxuriate  in  the  "quiet  air  of 
delightful  studies,"  and  "  to  suck  the  sweets 
of  sweet  philosophy "  or  are  ambitious  to 
shine  as  oratorical  or  literary  stars  that 
they  come  to  underestimate  the  value  of 
pastoral  visitation  and  place  a  knowledge 
of  books  above  the  love  of  men. 


Near  to  Mert  Near  to  God.       195 

But  it  is  for  the  preacher's  own  advan- 
tage that  communion  with  his  people  may 
be  most  strongly  urged.  He  needs  the 
people  even  more  than  they  need  him. 
As  a  preacher  he  is  maimed  unless  he 
have  warm  and  tender  sympathies,  and 
how  are  these  to  be  maintained  unless  he 
lives  close  to  men }  Men  who  aim  to  keep 
the  Godward  side  of  their  soul  open  while 
the  manward  side  remains  shut  aim  at  the 
impossible.  It  is  the  fundamental  doc- 
trine of  the  New  Testament  that  we  ap- 
proach God  only  through  humanity. 
According  to  Jesus  right  relations  with 
man  precede  all  the  forms  of  worship. 
According  to  John  we  know  we  have 
passed  from  death  to  life  only  when  we 
love  the  brethren.  If  the  world  is  to 
know  that  men  are  Christ's  disciples  be- 
cause they  love  one  another  then  a  minis- 
ter's self-denying  affection  for  his  people  is 
the  one  supreme  test  of  his  right  to  be 
counted  a  faithful  servant  of  the  Lord. 


196    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

From  his  parish  he  will  glean  ideas  and 
also  gather  nutriment  with  which  to  feed 
all  his  powers  of  feeling.  One  half  day 
spent  close  to  ordinary  mortals  will  give  a 
man  more  clear  and  helpful  thoughts  than 
can  be  found  in  the  last  learned  book,  no 
matter  who  the  author.  Men  are  better 
any  day  than  books.  They  are  written  all 
over  by  the  finger  of  God  and  happy  the 
man  who  can  read  this  living  revelation 
edited  down  to  date. 

If  a  pastor  neglects  his  people  for  his 
books  he  pays  dearly  for  his  sins.  Not 
only  does  he  lose  that  keenness  of  sensi- 
bility and  tenderness  of  sympathy  which 
give  sparkle  and  warmth  to  the  sermon, 
but  like  a  man  who  has  lost  his  way  he 
wanders  in  a  realm  of  ideas  foreign  to  the 
lives  of  his  people.  His  vocabulary  will 
sound  like  that  of  a  man  from  far  off  re- 
gions. By  his  mouth  he  is  condemned. 
He  may  try  to  induce  his  congregation  to 
believe  that  he  cares  for  it  but  the  telltale 


Near  to  Men  Near  to  God.       197 

words  with  which  he  builds  his  sermons 
will  cry  out  against  him.  Worst  of  all  he 
will  have  in  his  own  heart  a  hunger  which 
is  never  satisfied,  and  will  find  the  satis- 
factions of  the  ministry  grow  less  with  the 
increasing  years.  The  joy  of  life  lies  in 
one's  relations  with  his  fellowmen.  If  a 
minister  is  not  taking  his  people  deeper 
into  his  heart  and  if  he  is  not  constantly 
growing  deeper  into  theirs  his  life  will 
grow  increasingly  monotonous  and  he  will 
be  likely  to  be  one  of  the  notorious  one 
hundred  who  apply  for  every  vacant  pulpit. 
To  sit  in  one's  study  grinding  out  great 
ideas,  that  to  a  young  man  seems  the  road 
to  pulpit  greatness  ;  but  in  later  years  he 
learns  that  pulpit  greatness  is  not  the 
knack  of  playing  with  ideas  but  the  power 
of  expressing  a  loving  message  in  familiar 
words  and  throwing  around  it  an  atmos- 
phere of  fire.  In  short  it  is  the  gospel  of 
love  which  the  preacher  is  most  in  need 
of.     Not  until  he  loves  is  he  truly  born  of 


198    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

God.  "  In  the  government  of  nations," 
said  Cromwell,  "that  which  is  to  be 
looked  after  is  the  affection  of  the  peo- 
ple," and  no  less  is  true  in  the  government 
and  leadership  of  churches.  A  recluse 
may  by  unusual  gifts  of  speaking,  win  a 
short-lived  admiration  by  extraordinary 
pulpit  feats,  but  it  is  the  man  who  sin- 
cerely loves  his  people  and  who  is  sincerely 
loved  by  them  who  most  surely  moulds 
their  temper  and  turns  their  feet  into  the 
way  of  life. 


Eagles^  Race-horses  and  Plodders.   199 


XXV. 

Eagles y  Race-horses  and  Plodders, 

The  climax  of  God's  redeeming  grace, 
according  to  Isaiah  xl.,  31,  is  found  in  the 
strength  which  enables  men  to  plod.  To 
soar  like  an  eagle  is  difficult,  to  run  like  a 
race-horse  is  more  difficult  still,  but  to 
walk  and  not  faint  —  this  is  the  greatest 
feat  which  the  power  of  God  can  enable 
any  man  to  do. 

The  high  art  of  walking  is  one  which 
the  minister  must  master.  Of  all  men  he 
can  least  afford  to  indulge  in  the  luxury  of 
flying  or  running.  These  only  put  him 
out  of  breath  and  unfit  him  for  his  work. 
His  usefulness  depends  upon  the  evenness 
and  continuousness  of  his  labors.  He  is 
a  shepherd  and  shepherds  neither  fly  nor 


200   Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

run.  A  shepherd's  work  is  prosaic,  tedi- 
ous, slow  and  obscure.  Feeding  sheep  is 
his  daily  task  and  for  this  he  needs  neither 
the  mettle  of  the  racer  nor  the  buoyancy 
of  the  eagle.  He  must  have  a  genius  for 
plodding.  The  clergyman  who  is  able  to 
trudge  bravely  through  the  years,  filling 
the  months  with  quiet  honest  work,  press- 
ing himself  close  upon  his  people  and 
holding  his  people  and  himself  close  to  the 
heart  of  Christ  may  cause  little  stir  in  the 
world  but  he  will  make  an  impression 
which  will  be  felt  in  heaven.  The  farmer 
and  preacher  have  need  of  the  same  pa- 
tience, fidelity  and  pluck.  The  laws  of 
the  soil  and  the  soul  are  inexorable  and 
processes  of  growth  in  matter  and  spirit 
are  orderly  and  slow.  There  must  be 
hard  plowing,  faithful  sowing,  patient  wait- 
ing, and  skillful  harvesting  if  the  Lord  of 
the  Harvest  is  to  give  a  reward.  A  man 
who  only  prances  or  flies  is  a  failure  both 
in  pulpit  and  field. 


Eagles,  Race-horses  and  Plodders.  20 1 

But  this  gift  of  plodding  has  not  been 
given  to  all  men.  It  is  a  form  of  genius, 
almost  as  invaluable  and  rare  as  that  of  the 
artist  and  poet.  If  a  man  does  not  possess 
it  let  him  keep  out  of  the  ministry.  He 
will  be  unhappy  all  his  days  and  at  even- 
tide it  shall  be  dark.  The  parish  will  be  a 
cage  against  whose  bars  he  will  beat  and 
bruise  his  impatient  wings ;  the  church 
will  be  a  dray  in  whose  shafts  he  will  chafe 
and  fret,  repining  always  over  imaginary 
races  which  he  might  have  run  and  won. 

Some  men  cannot  brook  obscurity.  They 
covet  popular  attention.  They  live  on 
public  favor.  Unless  they  can  attract  and 
hold  the  eye  of  the  community  they  are  of 
all  men  most  wretched.  To  be  ignored 
by  the  press  is  to  them  gehenna.  To 
glorify  God  and  enjoy  him  forever  is  not 
enough  :  they  must  cut  a  figure  along  with 
other  notorious  characters  in  the  public 
eye,  for  this  also  is  a  part  of  the  chief  end 
of  man, 


202    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers, 

And  so  instead  of  going  quietly  about 
their  work  doing  good  to  all  men  according 
to  their  opportunity,  they  attempt  to  play 
the  eagle.  They  soar  into  the  heavens  of 
dazzling  rhetoric,  and  spread  their  wings 
in  the  broad  realms  of  sensational  devices. 
To  make  a  show  either  in  the  pulpit  or  in 
parochial  activity  becomes  a  consuming, 
devastating  ambition.  These  would-be 
eagles  of  the  pulpit  have  brought  the 
clergy  in  many  quarters  into  irretrievable 
disrepute.  Not  a  few  newspaper  men  hold 
ministers  in  contempt  because  of  their 
unhappy  dealings  with  pulpit  eagles  who 
have  clamored  incessantly  for  the  privilege 
of  soaring  in  their  columns.  A  minister 
itching  for  public  recognition  not  only 
makes  himself  ridiculous  but  throws  sus- 
picion on  all  his  brethren.  Or  if  a  man  is 
too  shrewd  to  thrust  himself  upon  the  lords 
of  the  press  he  may  display  his  eagle 
instincts  in  other  ways.  He  may  prepare 
**  great  "  sermons  — possibly  three  or  four 


Eagles,  Race-horses  and  Plodders.  203 

—  just  to  let  his  people  know  what  tre- 
mendous heights  he  can  reach  when  he 
cares  to  spread  his  pinions.  But  these 
aerial  flights  use  up  so  much  vitality  that 
for  a  month  after  one  of  them  he  is  as  tame 
and  weak-winged  as  an  aged  barn-yard  fowl. 
No  man  can  fly  all  the  time  or  even  one  day 
in  seven.  And  worst  of  all  this  mad  desire 
to  imitate  the  eagle  begets  and  nourishes  a 
deep-seated  discontent.  The  man  afflicted 
with  it  is  always  brooding  over  imagined 
slights  and  neglects.  The  community  does 
not  appreciate  him,  his  own  church  under- 
estimates his  ability,  and  out  of  this  sense 
of  injustice  proceed  vague  and  feverish 
dreams  of  other  parishes  where  eagles  are 
appreciated  at  their  full  value,  and  of  other 
people  whose  eyes  are  open  to  the  gifts  and 
graces  which  his  own  people  fail  to  see. 
It  is  the  misfortune  of  ministers  who  want 
to  fly  like  eagles  that  most  of  them  have 
only  the  wings  of  a  more  humble  bird. 
What   seems  to  them  august    soaring  ap- 


204   Quiet  Hints  to  Groiviitg  Preachers. 

pears  to  those  who  behold  them  nothing 
more  than  the  awkward  flopping  of  a 
gander  which  does  not  know  his  place. 

To  be  a  clerical  race-horse  is  as  disas- 
trous as  to  be  an  ordained  eagle.  Some 
men  are  always  running  races  and  attract 
the  public  notice  by  their  snorting  and  per- 
spiration. They  look  upon  all  the  minis- 
ters around  them  as  so  many  rivals  in  a 
race,  and  laying  aside  every  weight  — 
sometimes  even  ethical  obligations  —  they 
run  with  fury  the  race  which  is  set  before 
them,  looking  not  unto  Jesus  but  at  the 
man  who  seems  most  likely  to  outstrip 
them.  This  race  becomes  more  furious  if 
the  ministers  chance  to  be  of  the  same 
denomination,  for  in  that  case  the  speed 
made  by  the  racers  will  be  entered  on  the 
same  page  in  the  denominational  church 
record,  and  a  clergyman  stands  branded  in 
the  eyes  of  church  committees  who  is 
unable  on  the  race-track  to  leave  all  Com- 
petitors behind.     Sad  indeed  is  the  story 


Eagles,   Race-horses  and  Plodders.    205 

if  one  had  the  heart  to  tell  it.  What  will 
ministers  not  do  when  the  fever  of  the 
race-course  is  once  in  their  blood  ?  They 
will  lie  about  the  size  of  their  congrega- 
tions and  pad  the  roll  of  their  church 
membership,  and  drop  subtracting  insinua- 
tions about  the  man  ahead  of  them,  and 
carry  into  the  pulpit  a  heart  full  of  envy 
and  bitterness,  and  become  a  hypocrite  as 
deep-stained  and  damnable  as  were  the 
hollow-hearted  miscreants  at  whom  the 
Lord  hurled  thunderbolts  nineteen  centu- 
ries ago. 

The  salvation  of  the  minister  like  that  of 
other  men  lies  in  his  willingness  to  do  his 
duty  without  fuss  or  feathers  up  to  the 
level  of  his  strength  and  opportunity. 
Fame  is  nothing,  publicity  is  nothing, 
popularity  is  nothing,  serving  God  by  help- 
ing men  is  all.  Most  of  the  best  work 
done  in  the  world  is  done  by  unnoticed 
toilers  in  obscure  fields.  Most  of  the  best 
preaching    is    done    in  pulpits  which  have 


2o6    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

no  halo  around  them  in  the  public  eye. 
The  best  sermons  do  not  as  a  rule  get 
into  the  papers,  nor  is  any  mention  made 
of  them  by  the  reporters.  The  most 
influential  preachers  are  not  those  most 
talked  about  but  those  whose  words  go 
deepest  into  the  consciences  and  hearts  of 
men.  The  church  can  afford  a  few  eagles 
and  race-horses  of  the  nobler  sort,  but  after 
all  the  solid  and  enduring  work  must  be 
done  largely  by  the  plodders.  My  brother, 
if  you  are  capable  of  walking  without  faint- 
ing, thank  God  and  take  courage.  You  are 
a  man  of  gifts,  and  have  in  yourself  indubi- 
table evidence  of  the  presence  and  favor  of 
the  Almighty.  Other  men  may  astonish 
the  nation  by  flying  over  every  celebration, 
but  at  the  end  of  the  day  you  having  sown 
precious  seed  will  come  home  rejoicing 
bringing  your  sheaves  with  you. 


Unconscious  Decay.  207 


XXVI 

Unconscious  Decay, 

It  is  the  nature  of  many  of  the  most 
vital  and  transforming  of  the  spiritual  pro- 
cesses to  take  place  below  the  reach  of 
consciousness.  A  man  growing  better 
does  not  measure  the  stages  of  his  prog- 
ress, nor  does  a  man  becoming  worse 
realize  the  headway  of  his  descent.  There 
are  things  which  are  hidden  from  the 
vision  of  both  saints  and  sinners.  Their 
eyes  are  holden  so  they  cannot  see  them. 
Thus  Moses  after  his  long  communion 
with  the  Eternal  came  down  from  the 
Mountain  with  a  glory  on  his  face,  but 
"Moses  wist  not  that  his  face  shone." 
What  was  evident  to  others  was  concealed 
from    him.     Likewise    Samson  after   that 


20 8    Qtdet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  had  departed  from 
him  "wist  not  that  the  Lord  was  de- 
parted." This  awful  fact  did  not  break 
upon  him  until  by  the  failure  of  doing 
things  which  formerly  he  had  done  with 
ease  he  found  himself  impotent  and  humili- 
ated in  the  presence  of  his  foes. 

The  processes  of  life  and  death  run  on 
to-day  held  in  the  grip  of  laws  established 
at  the  beginning,  and  many  a  Moses 
illumines  his  people  with  a  glory  of  which 
he  himself  does  not  dream,  while  many  a 
Samson  with  great  deeds  behind  him  still 
marches  boldly  against  the  Philistines  not 
realizing  that  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  goes 
with  him  now  no  more. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  many  of  the 
professional  apostles  of  the  so-called  higher 
life  do  not  win  the  confidence  of  the  dis- 
cerning. They  talk  too  much.  The  man 
who  says,  "Look  at  me,  see  how  my 
face  shines ! "  closes  our  ears  to  his  argu- 
ment for   holiness   by  the  impudence   of 


Unco7iscio2is  Decay.  209 

his  vainglorious  invitation.  Self  conscious- 
ness and  lofty  spiritual  attainments  do  not 
go  together.  Men  who  live  nearest  to  the 
heart  of  God  do  not  prate  of  their  visions 
nor  boast  of  the  light  in  their  face. 

We  cannot  fail  to  be  suspicious  likewise 
of  the  Samsons  who  lose  the  power  of  con- 
quering but  in  their  weakness  go  on  boast- 
ing as  if  they  were  still  able  to  carry  off 
the  gates  of  Gaza.  Because  a  man  is  once 
a  preacher  it  does  not  follow  that  he  is 
always  a  preacher.  A  man  may  lose  his 
heavenly  credentials  although  he  continues 
to  write  "  Reverend  "  in  front  of  his  name. 
The  descent  to  Sheol  is  easy  and  for  the 
minister  as  for  all  mortals  the  way  is 
always  open.  It  is  not  closed  on  Sundays 
and  no  broader  entrance  opens  into  it  than 
from  the  pulpit  platform.  It  is  the  truth 
even  as  Father  John  has  written  it,  "  our 
old  man  is  constantly  present  with  us, 
tempting  us,  snaring  us,  corrupting  us, 
destroying     us."      The     deterioration     of 


2IO    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

spiritual  life  in  men  ordained  to  preach  the 
Gospel  is  one  of  the  saddest  of  all  the  mys- 
teries of  sin.  Like  Judas  men  for  a  while 
cast  out  devils  and  then  fall  by  a  devil 
themselves. 

Always  some  one  besetting  sin  hes  at 
the  root  of  the  tragedy.  The  wages  of  sin 
is  death  in  all  circumstances  and  gener- 
ations. Ministers  escape  exposure  longer 
than  most  men  because  their  sins  are  in 
general  sins  of  the  spirit  rather  than  of  the 
flesh  and  hence  bring  only  spiritual  retri- 
bution. They  who  sow  to  the  flesh  reap 
corruption.  Gluttony  and  drunkenness  and 
licentiousness  —  these  sins  are  evident  go- 
ing before  to  judgment,  but  these  are  not 
the  sins  which  entrap  and  slay  the  leaders 
of  the  church.  Ministers,  with  rare  excep- 
tions, fall  by  the  hands  of  enemies  no  less 
fatal  but  far  more  insidious  and  respectable, 
pride,  selfishness,  envy,  covetousness,  lazi- 
ness, ambition,  these  and  a  host  of  others. 
The  sinner  is  not  exposed  to  sudden  and 


Unconscious  Decay.  2 1 1 

spectacular  ruin,  he  dies  piece-meal.  Un- 
conscious of  the  progress  of  the  processes 
of  moral  disintegration  he  suffers  as  the 
paralytic  suffers  by  a  progressive  loss  of 
sensibility  and  power.  Who  does  not  know 
ministers  of  the  Gospel  who  once  were 
favored  and  mighty  men  and  of  whom  the 
world  now  says,  How  are  the  mighty 
fallen  !  They  are  still  in  the  pulpit  but 
their  usefulness  has  ended.  Their  ser- 
mons are  sounding  brass  and  worse. 
Their  prayers  are  useless  as  the  prayers 
of  the  priests  of  Baal.  What  they  say 
has  no  influence  on  their  congregation,  for 
their  voice  has  lost  the  subtle  and  com- 
manding accent  of  spiritual  veracity. 
When  one  comes  to  know  these  men  in 
the  privacy  of  their  own  personal  life  the 
cause  of  the  decay  of  spiritual  power 
becomes  clear.  They  are  ministers  but 
they  are  not  good  men.  They  are  petty 
or  niggardly  or  stingy  or  lazy  or  censorious 
or    pretentious    or    pessimistic    or    sour. 


212    Qidct  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

The  light  and  joy  have  gone  out  of  their 
own  soul  and  therefore  power  has  gone  out 
of  their  preaching.  Their  failure  in  the 
pulpit  is  to  them  a  mystery,  but  it  is  not 
a  mystery  to  any  one  who  knows  them  and 
understands  the  conditions  of  spiritual 
power. 

The  dead-line  then  is  a  terrible  reality 
which  ministers  of  all  ages  need  fear  and 
shun.  Some  men  die  earlier,  others  die 
later,  the  date  is  determined  by  the  rate  of 
progress  of  their  sin.  Only  a  man  genu- 
inely good  can  be  a  minister  of  power  to 
the  end  of  the  day.  All  others  are  sooner 
or  later  overtaken  and  overwhelmed. 

Nothing  is  more  tragic  than  the  spectacle 
of  a  minister  who  began  his  career  with 
men  eager  to  hear  him,  preaching  at  last  to 
a  world  unresponsive  to  his  message.  The 
world  to  such  a  man  is  an  insoluble  enigma. 
Why  he  should  fail  while  other  men  suc- 
ceed is  a  tormenting  problem.  He  com- 
pares himself  with  his  successful  brethren 


Unconscious  Decay.  213 

and  in  no  whit  does  he  seem  to  fall  behind 
the  chief  of  them.  He  has  gone  through 
college,  and  completed  a  Seminary  course, 
and  read  shelves  of  books  and  studied 
elocution  under  a  dozen  teachers,  and 
therefore  why  should  he  not  succeed  ?  He 
frames  his  diplomas  and  reads  over  his 
ordination  papers.  These  are  regular  and 
valid  and  therefore  wide  doors  of  useful- 
ness ought  to  open.  He  compares  his 
sermons  with  those  of  men  to  whom  the 
world  seems  glad  to  listen,  and  in  illus- 
trations, ideas,  rhetorical  finish,  logical 
force,  homiletical  art,  his  sermons  are 
fully  equal  and  in  many  points  superior  to 
all.  He  picks  up  the  name  of  a  favored 
preacher  and  says,  "  Why  should  his  name 
be  sounded  more  than  mine  t  Speak 
them,  mine  doth  become  the  mouth  as 
well.  Weigh  them,  mine  is  as  heavy. 
Now  in  the  name  of  all  the  gods  at  once 
upon  what  meat  doth  this  our  Chrysostom 
feed  that  he  is  grown  so  great ! "     Poor 


214    Quiet  Hints  to  Growing  Preachers. 

man,  he  has  left  out  of  consideration  the 
one  thing  essential  —  the  spirit  of  God.  It 
is  not  by  rhetorical  might  nor  by  logical 
power  but  by  the  breath  of  the  Spirit  that 
congregations  are  swayed  and  the  gates  of 
the  kingdom  thrown  open.  And  this  only  a 
good  man  can  have.  Sermons  are  like 
salt  ;  they  have  a  color  and  texture  and 
weight,  but  all  these  are  as  nothing  unless 
there  goes  along  with  them  a  savor.  If 
the  sermons  have  lost  their  savor,  no  mat- 
ter what  may  be  their  rhetoric  or  logic  or 
thought  they  are  good  for  nothing  but  to 
be  trodden  under  foot  of  men.  For  minis- 
ters then  as  well  as  for  laymen  the  words 
of  the  Hebrew  preacher  have  abiding  sig- 
nificance. 

*'  Fear  God  and  keep  his  commandments^ 
For  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man." 

THE    END. 


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